JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.

Vacation's over! School's begun! A splendid holiday time you've had, no doubt, my dears, and now you feel like setting to work again with earnest good-will. That's right. But don't try to do to much at first. Better start easily and keep up the pace, than make a quick run for a while only to falter and grow weary before you are half-way.

MOQUI PEEKEE.

Word is sent to me of a queer kind of bread called "Peekee," which is used by the Moqui American Indians. It comes in square loaves that are made by folding, twice across, several sheets of what looks like very thin bluish-green crust.

First, the meal is made by women, who grind it into flour between two stones, and then it is mixed with water until it is a thin blue paste or batter, when a little cedar-ash is sprinkled into it. The oven is a smooth-faced stone heated by kindling a fire under it. The batter is smeared over the hot stone, and is soon baked into a thin sheet, about two feet long and a foot and a half wide. Several sheets are folded, while yet warm and soft, to make a loaf, which is then set aside to dry.

This curious bread is very brittle and is eaten by breaking off little bits with the fingers. People who have never eaten it before soon become quite fond of it.

POTATO BLOSSOMS AS ORNAMENTS.

"Potato plants used to be grown, a very long time ago, in front yards on Broadway, New York, for the sake of the flowers, which were much prized for bouquets and other ornamental purposes. However, the potatoes themselves,"—I suppose this means the tubers,—"became such favorite food in a few years, that the plants were promoted backward from the flower-beds to the kitchen-gardens and open fields. The beauty of the blossoms was forgotten in the usefulness of their roots."

The moral of this paragram is: If you are merely good-looking, you will not be apt to get on in life, but will stay about where you are; and if it should be found out that you can be put to use, you will be planted in the open fields.

This doesn't seem to read quite right, somehow; but, dear me, what do we want with a moral all the time? I leave you to find out what it ought to be in this case, if you think it's worth while. Only, if you do find out, I wish you would let me know.

SHARP-WITTED ROBINS.

Detroit, Michigan.

Dear Jack-In-The-Pulpit: Z.R.B's anecdote, "A Congress of Birds," in the July number, reminds me of an incident of which I was an eye-witness:

A cherry-tree grew near the house, and was yearly full of luscious cherries; but the robins scarcely allowed us to have one that did not have their monogram picked in it. One year, however, my brother determined to outwit the birds, and hung a large stuffed eagle from one of the boughs. The birds assembled on a neighboring tree and eyed the eagle sharply, while a grand consultation was held. Finally, a courageous robin darted from the tree, swooped directly under the eagle, and flew triumphantly back to tell the rest there was nothing to be feared. At once the whole flock of robins flew to the cherry-tree, and our hopes of a cherry-pie were doomed to disappointment for that year.

H.P.B.

A VERY DEAD LANGUAGE.

I once heard of a green-colored South American parrot who was more than one hundred years old. This aged fellow could speak in a real language which was known to have been used by a tribe of South American Indians who, it is supposed, petted and taught him when he was young. One by one the Indians died, until there was no one left who could understand a word of their language. The poor old bird tried hard to keep cheerful, but there were sorry times when he would mope by himself and say over some of the words of the language that had been spoken by his earliest and dearest human friends.

That was a very dead language, indeed, my dears; so dead that it is no wonder it made the old green parrot blue to speak it now and then. However, by this time it is past all power to worry anybody else, let us hope.

A PLANT THAT WALKS UPSIDE DOWN.

Shrubs, trees, Jack-in-the-Pulpits, and all such plants, grow with their roots down in the ground; but I've lately heard that a man called a philosopher, once wrote of a plant that grows and walks with the roots upward!

Lord Francis Bacon is the man's name, and the plant he meant is Man. Only he wrote in Latin, I believe, and so, instead of calling Man "a plant upside down," he called him "planta inversa." He explained these words by saying that the brain in man, whence the nerves start, to spread like a net-work all through the body, corresponds to the roots in a plant.

If this is so, my dears, you are a kind of walking plants, only you are obliged to walk top-side down. This seems curious, but it is pleasant to think you are not so very different from a Jack-in-the-Pulpit after all.

THE SMALLEST INSECT KNOWN.

The Red Schoolhouse.

My Dear Jack-in-the-Pulpit: No doubt, you have heard of the "leaf-cutter" bees, who line their nests with small round pieces of leaves, which they themselves cut and then fit together so exactly, without gum, that they hold their stores of honey and do not leak a bit. Well, a sharp-eyed observer has found, on one of these bees, an insect whose body is no longer than the width of the dot of this "i" (1-90th of an inch), and which is believed to be the smallest insect known. It is called Pteratomus, a word which means "winged atom," and it lives entirely upon the body of the bee. It has beautiful hairy wings, and long feelers, and its legs are rather like those of a mosquito, though, of course, very much smaller. Its feet are so small that they can only just be seen when magnified to four hundred times their natural size! Now, for a full-grown insect, as it is, I think the Pteratomus is very small.—Sincerely yours,

The Little Schoolma'am.

A WATER-SPOUT.

A WATER-SPOUT.

Did any of you ever hear of water-spouts at sea? I don't know much about them myself, but the St. Nicholas artist will draw a picture of one for you, and the editors will kindly put it in. According to travelers, the water seems to come down from the clouds, or go up from the sea,—I don't know which,—and drives along, through the storm, in a great watery column. I have heard of whirlwinds, and I think this might be called a "whirl-water."

THE USES OF HAIR ON PLANTS.

M.E.K. writes, in answer to my question in July, that her "Botany" book says, "Hair on plants seems to afford them security against changes of weather, and plants with hair can stand more heat than bare ones." A.W. Ferris says:

"If a plant that needs much moisture is dug up from its native wet home and planted in a dry spot, hairs will sprout on it and try to get from the air the moisture that can no longer be drawn from the earth. But if you put back this plant in its old home, it will lose its hair—becoming bald. Sometimes, plant hairs are connected with glands of poisonous liquid, as with the nettle, whose hairs we say 'sting,' because of the pain the poison gives when the skin is pricked by them."

Frances and Margaret Bagley, also, write on this subject, and I'm much obliged to all four. Besides these letters, I've had word that plant-hair is put to the following uses: On some plants it catches insects and helps to eat them; in others, the hair sends out a kind of juice which keeps away insects that might harm the plant; on the mulleins, the stiff hairs are supposed to prevent cattle from browsing on them; and on yet others, the hairs suck in gases and liquids as part of the food of the plants. And there may be other uses for these hairs that I haven't heard of yet.

DARK SUNS.

Here's something strange,—so strange that, may be, you 'd better inquire further into it. I give you the paragram just as it comes to me:

"The bright star Sirius, itself a vast flaming sun, has a companion which is also a sun,—nearly seven times as large as our own,—but which is dark, and gives no light at all. This dark sun was seen through a very powerful telescope in 1862, and it is thought that there are a great many like it, although no others have been found."