their honey. They blocked up
all the doors of the hive with wax, leaving only a little hole, just
big enough for one bee to enter at a time. Then the moths were
completely dumbfounded, and gave up the honey business in despair.

But the insect to which the epithet of cunning may be best ascribed,
is, I think, the flea. If you doubt this, try to catch one. What
double backsprings he will turn, what fancy dodges he will execute,
and how, at last, you will have to give up the game and acknowledge
yourself beaten by this little gymnast!

[Illustration]

But fleas have been taught to perform their tricks of strength and
activity in an orderly and highly proper manner. They have been
trained to go through military exercises, carrying little sticks for
guns; to work and pull about small cannon, although the accounts say
nothing about their firing them off; and, what seems the most
wonderful of all, two fleas have been harnessed to a little coach
while another one sat on the box and drove! The whole of this
wonderful exhibition was so small that a microscope had to be used in
order to properly observe it.

The last instance of the intelligence of insects which I will give is
something almost too wonderful to believe, and yet the statement is
made by a Dr. Lincecum, who studied the habits of the insect in
question for twelve years, and his investigations were published in
the _Journal of the Linnaean Society_. Dr. Lincecum says, that in Texas
there is an ant called by him the Agricultural Ant, which not only
lays up stores of grain, but prepares the soil for the crop; plants
the seed (of a certain plant called ant-rice); keeps the ground free
from weeds; and finally reaps the harvest, and separating the chaff
from the grain, packs away the latter, and throws the chaff outside of
the plantation. In "Wood's Bible Animals" you can read a full account
of this ant, and I think that after hearing of its exploits, we can
believe almost anything that we hear about the intelligence of
insects.

A FIRST SIGHT OF THE SEA.

[Illustration]

If you have ever seen the ocean, you will understand what a grand
thing it is to look for the first time upon its mighty waters,
stretching away into the distance, and losing themselves in the clouds
and sky. We know it is thousands of miles over to the other shore, but
for all that we have a pretty good idea of that shore. We know its
name, and have read about the people who live there