emn-looking rooks fly upon the lonely one
and put him to death, as if he had been found guilty of some
dreadful crime.

In this country, during spring, the blackbirds meet almost daily in
the tops of high trees, especially elms and locusts, and there they
chatter by the hour. Sometimes a few will fly off, angrily, with
quick, sharp notes, to some tree a little way off. After a while,
two or three more birds will join them from the large body. Then,
perhaps, some of them will go back as "peace commissioners," and
after a few more flights back and forth, and endless chatter, the
little party may return to the main body; or, increasing in number,
may form a second crowd as noisy as the first.

No doubt you have heard and seen many such powwows, dear Jack. Long
may you live to watch the birds and repeat to us their wisdom!
Truly your friend,

C.B.M.

AN INTERVAL NOT ON THE PROGRAMME.

I'm told that at Pompeii, Italy, in the year 79, a play was being acted
in one of the theaters, when a storm of cinders fell, buried the whole
city, and, of course, put a stop to the play, which has never been
completed. A few months ago, however, an operatic manager named Languri
made up his mind to have a new theater just where the old one stood; so,
he printed in the Italian newspapers a notice that ran something like
this:

"After a lapse of eighteen hundred years, the theater of Pompeii
will be re-opened, with the opera of 'La Figlia del Reggimento.' I
ask the continuation of the favor shown to my predecessor, Marcus
Quintus Martius, and beg to assure the public that I shall make
every effort to equal the rare qualities he displayed during his
management."

If only Marcus Quintus Martius and his actors, and musicians, and the
ancient audience, could have been at that re-opening of their
long-buried theater, how they would have stared!

THE LETTER-BOX.

Our older boys and girls will find in this number an excellent article
on "Parlor Magic," in which they are told, by Professor Leo Grindon, one
of the Faculty of the Royal School of Chemistry in Manchester, England,
how to perform some very interesting, and in some cases, quite
astonishing experiments in chemistry, optics, etc. Some of our readers
may be familiar with a few of these experiments, but the majority of
them will be found novel to nearly all young people. Occasionally, there