regular. A nerve runs out on each side between every two vertebræ, little rounded gaps being left for that purpose where the vertebræ fit together, so that when you look at a spinal cord with portions of the nerves still connected with it, it seems not unlike a double comb with a row of teeth on either side. The nerves which spring in this way from the spinal cord are called spinal nerves, and soon after they leave the vertebral canal they divide into branches, and so are spread nearly all over the body. In any piece of skin or flesh you examine, never mind in what part of the body, you will find nerves and blood-vessels. If you trace the nerves out in one direction, you will find them joining together to form larger nerves, and these again joining others, till at last all end in either the spinal cord or the brain. If you try to trace the same nerves in the other direction, you will find them branching into smaller and smaller nerves, until they become too small to be seen. If you take a microscope you will find they get smaller and smaller until they become the very finest possible threads.

The blood-vessels in a similar way join together into larger and larger tubes, which last all end in the heart. Every part of the body, with some few exceptions, is crowded with nerves and blood-vessels. The nerves all come from the brain or spinal cord—the vessels from the heart. So that every part of the body is governed by two centres, the heart, and the brain or spinal cord.

6. GENERAL ARRANGEMENTS.

Well, then, the body is made up in this way. First there is the head. In this is the skull covered with skin and flesh, and containing the brain. The skull rests on the top of the backbone, where the head joins the neck. In the upper part of the neck, the throat divides into two pipes or tubes-one the windpipe, the other the gullet. These, running down the neck in front of the vertebral column, covered up by many muscles, when you get about as far down as the level of the shoulders, pass into the great cavity of the body, and first into the upper part of it, or chest.

Here the windpipe ends in the lungs, but the gullet runs straight through the chest, lying close at the back on the backbone, and passes through a hole in the diaphragm into the abdomen, where it swells out into the stomach. Then it narrows again into the intestine, and after winding about inside the cavity of the abdomen a good deal, finally leaves it.

You see the alimentary canal (for that is the name given to this long tube made up of gullet, stomach, intestine, &c.) goes right through the cavity of the body without opening into it-very much as the tall narrow glass of a lamp passes through the large globe glass. You might pour anything down the narrow glass without its going into the globe glass, and you might fill the globe glass and yet leave the

narrow glass quite empty. If you imagine both glasses soft and flexible instead of hard and stiff, and suppose the narrow glass to be very long and twisted about so as to all but fill the globe, you will have a very fair idea of how the alimentary canal is placed in the cavity of the body.

Besides the alimentary canal, there is in the chest, in addition to the windpipe and lungs, the heart with its great tubes, and in the abdomen there are the liver, the kidneys, and other organs.

These two great cavities, with all that is inside them, together with wrappings of flesh and skin which make up the walls of the cavities, form the trunk, and on to the trunk are fastened the jointed legs and arms. These have no large cavities, and the alimentary canal goes nowhere near them.

One more thing you have to note. There is only one alimentary canal, one liver, one heart-but there are two kidneys and two lungs, the one on one side, the other on the other, and the one very much like the other. There are two arms and two legs, the one almost exactly like the other. There is only one head, but one side of the head is almost exactly like the other. One side of the vertebral column is exactly like the other as are also the two halves of the brain and the two halves of the spinal cord.

In fact, if you were to cut your rabbit in half from his nose to his tail, you would find that except for his alimentary canal, his heart, and his liver, one half was almost exactly the counterpart of the other.

Such is the structure of a rabbit, and your own body, in all the points I have mentioned, is made up exactly

tèn-don, lit., a tight-stretching
band. Lat. tendo, "I stretch."
tissue, lit., what is woven, tex-
ture. French, tissu, from Lat.
texere, "to weave."
di-a-phragm (-fram), lit., a par-
tition; called also the mid-
riff. Grk. dia, "through,
across," and phrasso, “I

fence."

in-tès-tine, lit., internal; hence

(plural) the internal membranous tubes SO called. Lat. intestinus, from intus, "within

partition stomach (-ak) coun'terpart

thorax, the breast.
cartilage, gristle.

vèrtebra, a joint, especially of
the backbone. Lat. verto,
"I turn."
tra-ché-a (-ké-), the windpipe.
Grk. tracheia, "rough,"-
being formed of rings of
gristle.
æs-ò-phag-us (es-). Grk. oiso,
"I shall carry,” and phagein,
"to eat."
al-i-mènt-ar-y, feeding, nourish-
ing. Lat. alo, “I nourish."

BALDER DEAD.

1. LAMENTATION IN VALHALLA.

So on the floor lay Balder dead; and round
Lay thickly strewn swords, axes, darts, and spears,
Which all the gods in sport had idly thrown
At Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clove;

But in his breast stood fixt the fatal bough
Of mistletoe, which Lok the Accuser gave
To Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw-
'Gainst that alone had Balder's life no charm.

And all the Gods and all the Heroes came, And stood round Balder on the bloody floor, Weeping and wailing; and Valhalla rang Up to its golden roof with sobs and cries.