he young ducks of the notion that it was preordained for them to
swim in, we were delighted to see a veritable lily-bud coming up.

At the present moment (July 25th) the whole surface of the water is
covered with leaves so large and fresh and beautiful that these alone
would compensate for all the trouble taken. The leaves are quite as
large, many of them, as the largest seen in the wild state, and among
them are two superbly perfect lilies, and several more struggling up to
the light. For the winter I shall cover the tub with boards and a thick
layer of straw, which will keep the water from freezing much below the
surface, and, I trust, preserve the precious roots at the bottom.

A little visitor from Philadelphia, whose grand passion is collecting
turtles, lizards, frogs, etc., has added five small frogs to the tub. At
any time one or more of them may be seen enthroned on a large leaf,
while at night callers sitting on the veranda hear the gentle croaking
and are greatly puzzled to account for it.

M. H.

A NEGLECTED BRANCH OF PHILOLOGY.

Slang must be coeval with the race. That part of the race which delights
in and creates it must have always existed. It is found in the oldest
light literature we possess, and in some of the gravest. It abounds in
the Greek plays, not being limited to those of them which avowedly
"Aristophanize." We can imagine the gamins of Israel echoing and
embellishing the "chaff" launched by Elijah at the discomfited priests
of Baal. Miriam comes as close to it as a lady may in her exultations
over the drenched Egyptians. Terence is full of it, and the _graffiti_
exhumed in Italy further enlighten us as to the deadest portion of one
of the dead languages.

Slang is one form of popular poetry. It will maintain its existence, in
ever-fleeting shapes, so long as the mind of the masses has a poetic
side, and will particularly flourish wherever circumstances favor the
combination, in the ideas of the masses, of the grotesque and the novel
with the imaginative. In this country, the West--and California, the
farthest border of the West--is the hotbed of slang. A Western writer
"spreads himself" at the expense of a rival who "welters" in "gush" or
"slops over" too profusely. His darling aim is to get his own "head
level" and to send his opponent off "on his ear." Of some of the phrases
of this kind the origin is difficult to trace, and ge