LESSON 60.

The Tiger and the Rhinoceros.

Of all wild beasts, tigers are most rapacious and destructive. They delight in blood, and seem to kill for the mere pleasure of killing. They are found in certain parts of Asia; and flocks and herds without distinction fall victims to their fury. They continue their carnage, so long as a single object remains in sight.

In size, the tiger exceeds the lion, which he will not shrink from attacking. His strength is so great, that he can carry off a horse or a buffalo with ease. He takes his prey, in general, by concealing himself, and springing suddenly on his victim; and if he misses his object, he makes off without repeating the attempt. When enraged, he shows his teeth, and shrieks in the most frightful tone.

The tiger and the rhinoceros are both solitary creatures, hiding themselves in the deep recesses of the forest; but they sometimes meet at the edge of the river, where they both come to drink. The rhinoceros is harmless; and he would hurt no one if let alone; but he is dreadful when provoked, on account of his prodigious strength. He is usually found about twelve feet long, and from seven to five feet high.

The head of the rhinoceros is furnished with a hard and solid horn, projecting from the snout. He lives on vegetables, and his upper lip is long and very pliable, serving to collect his food, and deliver it into the mouth. His loose skin is so thick that a musket-ball will scarcely penetrate it.

When attacked, his mode of fighting is to toss his enemy up in the air, catch him on his sharp stout horn, and then trample him to death. way he kills the tiger.

In this

LESSON 61.

"Here is a visiter for you," said Mary's uncle Robert, as he entered the room with a basin of water, "here is a visiter for you, and one that will surprise you very much, if you venture too near.' Will he hurt us? What have you got uncle?" said Mary.

"A cuttle-fish; but be not afraid, I can assure you he is like the worm in the cowslip,'

'With neither teeth, nor claws, nor sting

To frighten you away.

"It hardly looks more alive than the sea ane

mone," cried Fanny; "and what are those black spots coming out all over its body? I really believe it is dying."

"Not at all, my dear; it always looks black when you disturb it," said her uncle; "go nearer still, and it will throw out a brownish liquid, which is called sepia, and prepared by the chemists for painting."

"It is positively the strangest shaped thing I ever saw," said Fanny, "I wish (without frightening it) one could persuade it to move.

"He is no great traveller," replied uncle Robert, "and we have not left him room enough for his Iskill in this basin. Those two long feelers serve him for oars, and the other limbs are furnished with suckers to take fast hold of the rocks."

"What do you mean by suckers, uncle?" said Mary. "Do they fasten those little round lumps on the rocks ?"

"They are sticky of course," said Fanny, "like so many snails."

(6 Exactly; but there is more likeness than you are aware of," replied her uncle, "the, snail can walk up walls because he has the power of making a vacuum under his body, so that the pressure of the air may prevent him from falling. There is a contrivance of the same kind in the suckers of a cuttle-fish, and in the feet of a fly."

"I have seen boys lift a stone by laying a piece of wet leather upon it," said Fanny, and now I recollect they called it a sucker."

"It depends upon the same principle," said her uncle. "Whenever you can make a vacuum, or join two bodies so that there shall be no air between them, you may make use of the pressure of the atmosphere. By this power the cuttle-fish clings to the rock, and he has the additional security of being most firmly fixed, when the waves seem most anxious to wash him away."

"Because the more they press against him, thể tighter he holds; I wish the cuttle-fish could know that!" said Fanny.

"You do not think he is afraid of being washed away, surely?" said her uncle. "He is as safe in the water as we are upon land, and I dare say he is as happy in his way, as we are in ours. Shake your head, my dear, and look as wise as you please, I do not doubt you think yourself very superior to a cuttle; but you will never understand a hundreth part of the contrivance that has been spent upon your little body, or even upon this fish."

"Still we are better off than other animals," said Mary, "because we can find out some of these contrivances and we are rational creatures."

"No doubt, and vastly proud we are of our reason," replied her uncle; "but how many hours in a day, are we better employed than a fish? We can think, I grant you; but how seldom do we think to any purpose, and how continually are our minds taken up with caps, and gowns, and bonnets, and

chairs, and a thousand trifles!"

LESSON 62

The Sun, the Planets, and the fixed Stars

"Do look at the sky," said Fanny, one evening, "I hardly ever saw the stars look so bright. It is really quite a pity to light candles, and shut out all those beautiful worlds."

"They are all suns, are not they?" said Thomas, throwing his head back and standing still to admire them.

"Not the planets, my dear," said his uncle; "There is Jupiter just above the horizon, who is travelling round the sun like ourselves. The fixed stars are indeed supposed to be suns, and they

have probably systems of worlds attached to them; but these are placed at such an immense distance from us, that we can learn but very little about them."

"I do not think it certain that they are so large, and so far off, as some people say," replied Thom"Jupiter looks bigger than any of them, and he is not nearly so big as the sun.'

as.

"But it is foolish not to believe what people tell you," " said Fanny. "Astronomers calculate all these things; and a cannon ball would be-how long Mary? how many years in coming to us from the nearest fixed star."

"Seven millions of years," replied Mary; "but I hardly know how to believe it myself."

66 Why should you doubt it, my dear," said her uncle. "Is there anything improbable in the immensity of Creation? Or can anything be so improbable as that man should conceive a scheme too mighty for his Maker?-too glorious and too boundless for Omnipotence ? It is more likely that an insect in a grain of sand should comprehend the ocean, than that man should conceive of the infinity of space. And you are afraid of going too far! You are afraid of imagining worlds that would be too distant, suns that would be too terrific, or creatures that would be too numerous for the Providence of the Most High!"

"I like to think of the stars; I am glad we can see them, though they are so far off," said Thom

as.

"Do you think, uncle, the people in the stars like to look at us, and at our sun and moon?"

"They certainly cannot see the moon," replied Fanny, "(I mean if their eyes are like ours,) and, I do not believe without a telescope they would be able to see the earth."

"You may go a step further, my dear," said her uncle. "Our whole system, the planets and their moons, the glorious sun himself with all his