an they are asked to compete for prizes. Many
members wish to earn the rewards offered by the Table, and to all such
we desire to offer the first chance. These rewards consist of Order
badges in silver and gold, rubber stamps bearing your name and address,
fifty visiting cards with the copper plate, and a very limited number,
because we have only a few copies, of bound volumes of HARPER'S YOUNG
PEOPLE for 1893 or 1894. These rewards are offered, not for
subscriptions, but for giving printed matter to your friends. The offer
is limited, since we can allow only one member or Patron to accept it in
each town or neighborhood.

We repeat that the Order has no "have to's." But it has many literary
and prize advantages. We want the names and permanent addresses again in
order to correct our records. To all who send us such we forward the
Order's new Patent and our prize offers. Use a postal card--and write as
soon as convenient.

Who can give Us a Morsel on This?

An experience I once had with a garter-snake leads me to believe
that the family to which it belongs consists of more than one
variety. One warm day in May, while scouring the woods in search
of something of interest, I came upon a small pool at the edge of
the woods, seemingly a drinking-place for cattle. Yet the water
was black with a myriad of tadpoles, presided over by a monster
frog--the largest I have ever seen. I was interested in the queer
little wigglers, and did not notice the approach of a large snake,
making its way to the pool, till it had taken its fill of water,
as I then supposed. I quickly picked up a stone and killed the
snake, at first thinking it to be a water-adder. A second glance
showed it to be an unusually large garter-snake, less brilliantly
striped than any I had before seen.

I was about to leave the pool when I saw that the reptile's paunch
was considerably swollen, and that in it some live creature was
imprisoned. This aroused my curiosity, and in another moment I had
opened the paunch. To my astonishment seven squirming tadpoles
wriggled out upon the ground. I placed them in the pool, and all
swam off as briskly as before they had, Jonah-like, been swallowed
by a hungry monster.

Since this experience I have questioned in vain whether or not
there is a separate variety of the garter-snake which lives in or
nea