eaten, for bread sours very
quickly, and renders the water impure. In changing the water the fish
should never be subjected to any sudden variation of temperature, as the
shock produced by a violent change from water of medium temperature,
which is always best, to ice-cold, might ruin the whole stock of an
aquarium in an instant.

The ingenious Chinese make great pets of their gold-fish, and with
patience teach them many tricks, such as eating from their hands, or
rushing to be fed at the tinkle of a bell.

The gold-fish belongs to the genus _Cyprinus_, or the great carp family,
and is sometimes called the golden carp.

[Begun in No. 5 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, Dec. 2]

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGEN AND NYCTERIS.

A Day and Night Maehrchen.

BY GEORGE MACDONALD.

VIII.--THE LAMP.

Watho having given orders, took it for granted they were obeyed, and
that Falca was all night long with Nycteris, whose day it was. But Falca
could not get into the habit of sleeping through the day, and would
often leave her alone half the night. Then it seemed to Nycteris that
the white lamp was watching over her. As it was never permitted to go
out--while she was awake at least--Nycteris, except by shutting her
eyes, knew less about darkness than she did about light. Also, the lamp
being fixed high overhead, and in the centre of everything, she did not
know much about shadows either. The few there were fell almost entirely
on the floor, or kept like mice about the foot of the walls.

Once, when she was thus alone, there came the noise of a far-off
rumbling: she had never before heard a sound of which she did not know
the origin, and here, therefore, was a new sign of something beyond
these chambers. Then came a trembling, then a shaking; the lamp dropped
from the ceiling to the floor with a great crash, and she felt as if
both her eyes were hard shut and both her hands over them. She concluded
that it was the darkness that had made the rumbling and the shaking, and
rushing into the room, had thrown down the lamp. She sat trembling. The
noise and the shaking ceased, but the light did not return. The darkness
had eaten it up!

Her lamp gone, the desire at once awoke to get out of her prison. She
scarcely knew what out meant; out of one room into another, where there
was not even a dividing door, only an open arch, was all she knew of the
world. But suddenly she remembered that she had heard Falca speak of the
lamp _going out_: