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succession of leaves all day long. After the next change the silk-worm eats abundantly night and day, and should be kept warm. It now begins to get restless, and instead of eating is continually stretching out its head as though it were in search of something; its body will have become transparent, of a clear pearly hue, with bands of gold colour. Little bits of wood should now be fixed on the shelves in such a way as to give the insects a feeling of security; and they will immediately begin to make their cocoons, which they will complete in from four to seven days.

When the insects have done working, the cocoons are taken from the sticks, and a few being selected to breed from, the rest are prepared for unwinding. The insects enclosed are first killed, either by putting them in bags and enclosing them for half an hour in an oven heated to 88°; or by putting them in sieves, and, after covering them closely with a woollen cloth, placing the sieves over boiling water or boiling spirits of any kind. The insects being killed, the loose or floss silk is removed from the cocoons, and they are put by handfuls into basins of hot water, which has been heated almost to the boiling point; and the cocoons are stirred round in it for a few minutes with a whisk of broom. In a very short time the gum with which the insect had covered the cocoon is dissolved, and the loose threads beginning to

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MANAGEMENT OF SILK-WORMS.

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float on the water, five or six of them are collected, and the reeling of the silk begins. If well fed and kept in a proper temperature, the caterpillars will finish their labours twenty-four days after they are hatched. An ounce of eggs will produce about forty thousand caterpillars, which will consume nearly eleven hundred pounds of leaves, and will produce about eighty pounds of cocoons, or eight pounds of raw silk.

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THE

NATURAL OBJECTS NOTED IN A COUNTRY WALK:
MOLE; THE SHRIKE; THE BLACK
CUPS; THE WOUNDWORT.

SNAIL; THE SILLER PLEASURES OF

STUDYING

BOTANY.-GRANITE.- APPEARANCE OF THE CLOUds.

It gives me the greatest pleasure, my dear Annie, to find that you are entering so warmly into country pursuits, and I have read over repeatedly the passage in which you thank me for having taught you to love the country, and in which you say that when you look at your beautiful garden (now so brilliant with bright scarlet verbenas and golden-yellow calceolarias, that you can scarcely gaze at it in the sunshine), and that when you sit in your light cheerful room, or wander near the house, and see in one direction the village church peeping through the trees, and in another a river winding like a silver riband through the valley,

APPARATUS FOR WALKING.

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you can scarcely believe it is the same place as that which struck you as the very palace of gloominess only a few months ago. "The very rooms themselves seem changed," you add, "and even the situation of the house; for, instead of being buried in a deep valley, and surrounded by a thick forest which rose on every side as if to entomb it, and which appeared to forbid the possibility of walking out, it is now every thing I could desire, and I would not alter it even if I had Aladdin's lamp."

I am not, however, quite so well pleased to find that it is several weeks since you have been beyond the precincts of what you call your own domain; that is, the garden, poultry-yard, &c., immediately adjoining the house. It is well to love home, and to take a deep interest in all relating to it; but it is not well to live entirely in so confined a sphere. The mind indeed becomes contracted by dwelling only on a limited number of objects, and those all in what may be called an artificial state; while, on the contrary, it is expanded, and noble feelings are elicited, by communion with nature. "I have been talking to the vines," said the great Gocthe after paying a visit to the country, 66 and you cannot think what beautiful things they have said to me." Seek nature then, my dear Annie; leave your trim flower-garden, and your tame poultry, and wander

in the woods, admiring the poetry of forest scenery, and watching the habits of the various creatures which people what seems to the careless observer only one vast solitude.

You must not suppose, however, that I want you to set forth like a female knight-errant in quest of adventures; but I do think that attended by your maid, who I was glad to hear is a highly respectable and well-educated young woman, you may wander through the woods of your own park without incurring any very serious dangers.

In the first place, however, I would advise you to provide yourself with a pair of strong and yet comfortable boots. I prefer German boots made to tie round the ankles, so that they can be easily taken off when you come home with them dirty; as it is not very agreeable, when you are tired, to wait till your boots are unlaced before you can enjoy the comfort of clean dry shoes after a fatiguing walk. If you can walk in clogs comfortably they will keep you very dry, as two pairs of even thin soles admit less damp to the feet than one pair of thick ones. I do not, however, think you will find clogs advisable, unless you walk to church, or to make calls, as they fatigue the feet exceedingly by their irregular pressure; and, while Indian rubber clogs make the feet cold by preventing the evaporation of the insensible perspi

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