," replied the woodpecker, "I am
quite unable to do so. Some naturalists affirm that I hide acorns in
these pits; others maintain that I get worms out of them. I
endeavoured for some time to reconcile the two theories; but the worms
ate my acorns, and then would not come out. Since then, I have left
science to work out its own problems, while I work out the holes. I
hope the final decision may be in some way advantageous to me; for at
my nest I have a number of prepared holes which I can hammer into some
suitable tree at a moment's notice. Perhaps I could insert a few into
the scientific head."

"No-o-o," said the robin, reflectively, "I should think not. A
prepared hole is an idea; I don't think it could get in."

MORAL.--It might be driven in with a steam-hammer.

CIII.

"Are you going to this great hop?" inquired a spruce cricket of a
labouring beetle.

"No," replied he, sadly, "I've got to attend this great ball."

"Blest if I know the difference," drawled a more offensive insect,
with his head in an empty silk hat; "and I've been in society all my
life. But why was I not invited to either hop or ball?"

He is now invited to the latter.

CIV.

"Too bad, too bad," said a young Abyssinian to a yawning hippopotamus.

"What is 'too bad?'" inquired the quadruped. "What is the matter with
you?"

"Oh, _I_ never complain," was the reply; "I was only thinking of the
niggard economy of Nature in building a great big beast like you and
not giving him any mouth."

"H'm, h'm! it was still worse," mused the beast, "to construct a
great wit like you and give him no seasonable occasion for the display
of his cleverness."

A moment later there were a cracking of bitten bones, a great gush of
animal fluids, the vanishing of two black feet--in short, the fatal
poisoning of an indiscreet hippopotamus.

The rubbing of a bit of lemon about the beaker's brim is the
finishing-touch to a whiskey punch. Much misery may be thus averted.

CV.

A salmon vainly attempted to leap up a cascade. After trying a few
thousand times, he grew so fatigued that he began to leap less and
think more. Suddenly an obvious method of surmounting the difficulty
presented itself to the salmonic intelligence.

"Strange," he soliloquized, as well as he could in the water,--"very
strange I did not think of it before! I'll go above the fall and leap
downwards."

So he went out on the bank, walked round to the upper sid