f
learning in his native land conferred a degree of the most illustrious
grade upon him, and it was believed that if he had been a soldier and had
turned his splendid talents to the extermination of a remote tribe of
reptiles, the king would have ennobled him and made him rich. And this,
too, was the origin of that school of scientists called Manologists,
whose specialty is the deciphering of the ancient records of the extinct
bird termed Man. [For it is now decided that Man was a bird and not a
reptile.] But Professor Woodlouse began and remained chief of these, for
it was granted that no translations were ever so free from error as his.
Others made mistakes he seemed incapable of it. Many a memorial of the
lost race was afterward found, but none ever attained to the renown and
veneration achieved by the "Mayoritish Stone" it being so called from the
word "Mayor" in it, which, being translated "King," "Mayoritish Stone"
was but another way of saying "King Stone."

Another time the expedition made a great "find." It was a vast round
flattish mass, ten frog-spans in diameter and five or six high.
Professor Snail put on his spectacles and examined it all around, and
then climbed up and inspected the top. He said:

"The result of my perlustration and perscontation of this isoperimetrical
protuberance is a belief at it is one of those rare and wonderful
creation left by the Mound Builders. The fact that this one is
lamellibranchiate in its formation, simply adds to its interest as being
possibly of a different kind from any we read of in the records of
science, but yet in no manner marring its authenticity. Let the
megalophonous grasshopper sound a blast and summon hither the perfunctory
and circumforaneous Tumble-Bug, to the end that excavations may be made
and learning gather new treasures."

Not a Tumble-Bug could be found on duty, so the Mound was excavated by a
working party of Ants. Nothing was discovered. This would have been a
great disappointment, had not the venerable Longlegs explained the
matter. He said:

"It is now plain to me that the mysterious and forgotten race of Mound
Builders did not always erect these edifices as mausoleums, else in this
case, as in all previous cases, their skeletons would be found here,
along with the rude implements which the creatures used in life. Is not
this manifest?"

"True! true!" from everybody.

"Then we have made a discovery of peculiar value here; a disc