the length of a hundred feet. If you do not know how long this would be, you will do well to ask some friend to tell you of a building or something else with which you can compare it; for it is not very likely that you will ever see the whale itself, and its size is very wonderful. It is covered with a coat of fat, sometimes more than a yard thick; and when this is cut up and put over fires in great kettles, a hundred barrels of oil are sometimes obtained from a single whale.

Perhaps you already know how they take the whale. As soon as the sailors see one, they go towards him in a boat until they get as near to him as they dare. Then they throw their harpoons at him; these are sharp-pointed irons, fastened to a very long rope, one end of which they keep in the boat. As soon as the whale is wounded, he dives down into the water, and swims away to some distance. He is usually obliged to come up again in about half an hour to breathe, for he cannot live all the while under water; and then the men throw other harpoons at him. Sometimes he comes so near as to upset the boat with a blow of his strong tail. The picture shows you a scene of this kind, where the boat was tossed into the air, the men thrown out, and one of them drowned.

THE WOLF.

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The wolf is rather larger than our largest dogs, and looks somewhat like them; but he seems more wild, savage and cruel. The wolves go in large companies, making a terrible howl- . ing noise; and though they are in general cow- <y> ardly, yet when they are very hungry they attack large animals, and even men. They almost al ways go out by night, and the Bible refers to this when it says, "Their horses are more fierce than the evening wolves." Jacob, just before his death, said of one of his sons, "Benjamin shall raven as a wolf; in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at evening he shall divide the spoil."

There were once a great many wolves in New England and in other parts of the United States, ́and some are left yet, although many have been killed or driven away. There are still great numbers of them in some countries. In England the month of January used to be called Wolf-monat, or wolf-month; "because," as an old book says, people are wont in that moneth to be more in danger to be devoured of wolves than in any

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season els of the yeare, for that through the extremity of cold and snow those ravenous creatures could not find other beasts sufficient to feed upon."

A sad story is told of something that happened in Russia a few years since. A woman was one day riding on a sledge with her three children over a lonely road, when suddenly she heard the noise of wolves behind her. She was not very far from home, and tried to urge her horse on, to get out of their reach; but they gained upon her every moment, and were just on the point of rushing on the sledge, when the poor woman, to save the lives of the rest, caught up one of the children and threw it to the wolves. This stopped them but a short time; they devoured it at once and again ran howling after the sledge. The mother threw out a second child, hoping to escape with the other; but in vain. Again the cruel animals were close behind her, and to save her own life, hardly knowing what she did, she threw over her only remaining child. She succeeded in reaching home herself, in safety, but where were her children? She told the terrible story; but while she was endeavoring to excuse herself by telling of her exceeding fright and

danger, a man who stood by struck her on the head with an axe and killed her at one blowsaying that a woman who would thus give up her children to save her life, was not fit to live.

The Bible tells us of a time yet to come, when "the wolf shall feed with the lamb." Perhaps this will be exactly true of the animals in those days, though it now seems so unlikely; but I suppose it means also that wicked and cruel men shall become holy and Christ-like. Then all will be peace on earth, and "none shall hurt or destroy in all" God's "holy mountain."

I do not find the names of any animals mentioned in the Bible, beginning with X, Y, or Z. If you can find one, I should like to know it. And now I hope that whenever you see the names of of these animals in your Bible, you

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will take pleasure in noticing what is said about them, and will remember what I have told you. I have been very happy in talking to you about them.

THE END.