putting her down on the dry
shingle, proceeded to haul the little craft sufficiently high out of the
water to enable his mother to land.

'Sit still, Missie,' he called to Estelle, 'and I will carry you up in a
jiffy.'

(_Continued on page 214._)

A WONDERFUL WEIGHING MACHINE.

The Bank of England has in use a machine so delicately adjusted that it
can give the accurate weight of a speck of dust, whilst the same machine
will also weigh metal up to four hundred pounds. A postage stamp placed
on this scale will swing an indicator on a semi-circle a space of six
inches.

PEEPS INTO NATURE'S NURSERIES.

VII.--SOME CURIOUS NURSERIES.

You will find--many of you have found already--that the longer you
pursue the study of Natural History the more fascinating it seems to
become. Now, a part of this fascination is certainly to be traced to the
fact that the unsuspected is always happening; and this, too, happens
even to those who have studied nature's ways long enough to know that
what we call the 'rules of nature' are always subject to exceptions.
That is to say, we know that it would be wrong to suppose that, after we
have traced out the life-history of any particular creature, we have the
key to the life-history of _all_ its near relatives.

For example, you will remember that not long ago we described the
complicated history of the starfish, sea-urchins, and sea-cucumbers.
Strange and different as were the changes which these creatures passed
through when young, we agreed that they were all cast by their parents
adrift into the great world while yet so tiny as to require a microscope
to see them; and each mother sent forth her young in this defenceless
state by the thousand, so that, as a natural consequence, perhaps not
more than a dozen of each family survived. But there is one species of
sea-urchin which appears to assume some sort of responsibility and
tender care for her young ones. This is the Hemiaster sea-urchin. She
lays but a few eggs, and these she jealously guards in a number of
pouches on her back. Here they hatch, and in due time become young
sea-urchins (fig. 2). One of the starfish, again, carries its young on
its back under a wonderful tent stretched across the tips of specially
constructed spines; and, in order that water may constantly reach her
family, the roof of this tent is pierced with holes! Even the unsightly
sea-cucumber, or sea-slug, is not to be outdone. In what are know