is puzzle is so old that it probably will be new to thousands of
your young folks.--Yours truly,

M. B. T.

BIRDS CAUGHT BY SALT.

Yes. It's so; though I must say I felt inclined to laugh the first time
I heard one boy tell another to put salt on a bird's tail by way of
catching it. Now, however, word comes, all the way from California,
that there is a lake there, called "Deep Spring Lake," whose waters are
very salt; and that during certain conditions of the weather the
water-fowl of the lake become so encrusted with salt that they cannot
fly, and the Indians wade into the water and simply catch the birds
with their hands. The coating taken from one duck weighed six
pounds,--enough to have drowned it, even if its eyes and bill had not
been so covered as to blind and choke it. When the weather is favorable
for the formation of this crust upon the birds, the Indians do their
best with fires and noise to keep them away from the few fresh-water
streams where the poor things would be safe from the salt. Besides
this, the savages imitate the cries and calls of the birds, so as to
entice them to the dangerous part of the lake.

It seems to me that men must be very mean as well as very hungry to
take advantage of the birds in that way. However, "circumstances alter
cases," as the school-boy said when he had been "punished for his good"
by mistake.

A SPELL UPON KEROSENE.

Bridgeport, Conn.

Dear Little Schoolma'am: One would think that the word "kerosene"
could not be a very difficult one for the average inhabitant to
write correctly; but it is. From the New York _Independent_ I learn
that the following versions of the word have actually been received
by the Portland Kerosene Oil Company in its correspondence:

Caracine, carecane, caroziene, carocine, cursene, carozyne,
coriseen, carosyne, caricien, carsine, caresene, carozine,
carocene, carosean, carycene, caresien, caraseen, caroscene,
crosen, carecene, carizoein, keriscene, karosin, kerocine,
keressean, keriseene, kerasene, kerosen, kereseen, kerison,
kerriseen, kerricene, keroseen, kerosine, karosina, keresene,
kerrsein, keroscene, kerose, kerasseen, kereson kerocene, kerozene,
kerrisene, kerryseen, kerissien, kersien, kerossein, keriscene.

Now isn't that astonishing?--Yours sincerely,

MARY N.G.

THE EYEBROW WORD.

What do you think this is? It is neither more nor less than the