ill send me her address, I would like to exchange pressed
Missouri flowers for Illinois flowers with her. I have pressed
flowers from California and Tennessee, and I have been studying
botany this spring.

WROTON M. KENNY,
Pineville P. O., McDonald County, Missouri.

The whip-poor-will is a native of North America, and is found from the
Pacific to the Atlantic. In winter it travels southward, and spends the
cold season in the forests of Central America. It is a brownish-gray
bird, and has a large mouth, armed with bristles at the base of the
bill, with which it retains the moths and other soft-bodied insects upon
which it feeds. It is a very shy bird, and hides itself all day, coming
out at evening and early morning to skim along with noiseless flight
near the ground, seeking its food. It is sometimes called the
night-swallow. It makes no nest, but deposits two greenish eggs, spotted
with blue and brown, in some snug corner, among fallen leaves, on the
ground.

* * * * *

ELK CITY, KANSAS.

My paper comes on Saturday, and I read all the letters in the
Post-office Box first. I have a pet. It is a very funny one. It is
a horny toad. I found it near Pocket Creek. I would like to know
what to feed it with. Papa found a little bug this morning on the
sweet-potato vines. It changes its color very often. Sometimes it
is gold, sometimes green, sometimes red. Can any one tell me the
name of it?

MARY W. (11 years old).

Your bug is probably one of the small iridescent beetles, of which there
are many varieties. As they move about in the light, the color appears
to change, like the color of the head and throat of a South American
humming-bird. If the appetite of your horny toad is like that of a
common toad, it will prefer an insect diet. But it will live weeks
without eating anything, and unless you allow it to hunt for itself, it
will probably die of starvation some day.

* * * * *

GEORGE H. M.--A neat black walnut box, about five inches deep, will make
a good case for butterflies. Glue pieces of cork in the bottom, on which
to mount your specimens, and have a tightly fitting glass cover. You
must scatter bits of camphor in your case, to keep away moths, as they
destroy dried insects, and when your case is full, paste thin paper over
the cracks to make it as air-tight as possible.

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