will now and then favor us with bits of information about their
own birds and flowers. You must excuse us for writing so much, leaving
not room enough to print half of your own pretty communications.

* * * * *

"Earl" writes from Chicago: "I live on the West Side, and the ponds are
frozen strong enough for skating. I have been skating twice at Jefferson
Park." That does not look much like hunting for willow "pussies," does
it? And perhaps you are laughing, because we remind you of spring now
just when you are beginning to plan for skating parties. But willows
grow all around the ponds where you skate, and you will never see the
bare twigs without wondering how soon you can write and tell us the
downy "pussies" have appeared.

* * * * *

I am six years old, and I live in Hastings, Nebraska. I like
_Harper's Young People_ very much. I have a duck, a chicken, a pig,
and a little rat dog whose name is Jip. I would like to know how to
teach him to catch rats. He by accident caught one the other day,
fastened in the pig-pen fence, and killed it before it got loose.

ARTHUR S. N.

* * * * *

QUINCY, ILLINOIS.

My papa takes your paper for little folks, and I like it first
rate. The stories in it are very good. It is hard for me to say
which I like best. I wish you could see my pet chicken.

MARY E. M.

* * * * *

WILLIE J. M.--In gardens and hot-houses, where they are not liable to
accident, toads have been known to attain the age of thirty-five and
even forty years. The wonderful stories sometimes told of living toads
being found imbedded in solid rock, where they must have been imprisoned
for ages, or in the heart of ancient trees, are not well authenticated,
and such cases have never come under the observation of scientific men.

* * * * *

NEW YORK CITY.

I am very much obliged to you for telling me how to feed and house
my land turtle. I have also three water turtles, one bull-frog, two
large toads, and twenty small toads. Please tell me how to feed
them. I keep them in a large yard, and I never feed them, so I
often wonder how they live. Your paper is getting better every
week, and the story about "Photogen and Nycteris" is about the best
you have published.

LYMAN