smaller beings which swim about him, many of which consist of but one cell
and are popularly known as animalculae, more correctly as Protozoans.
Cyclops has a jointed body and in many other ways shows his relationship
to crabs and lobsters, even though they are many times larger and live in
salt water.

Another member of this group is Daphnia, although the appropriateness of
this name yet remains to be discovered; Daphnia being a chunky-bodied
little being, with a double-branched pair of oar-like appendages, with
which he darts swiftly through the water. Although covered with a hard
crust like a crab, this is so transparent that we can see right through
his body. The dark mass of food in the stomach and the beating heart are
perfectly distinct. Often, near the upper part of the body, several large
eggs are seen in a sort of pouch, where they are kept until hatched.

So if the sea is far away and time hangs heavy, invite your friends to go
sponging and crabbing in the nearest pond, and you may be certain of
quieting their fears as to your sanity as well as drawing exclamations of
delight from them when they see these beautiful creatures for the first
time.

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DECEMBER

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NEW THOUGHTS ABOUT NESTS

Our sense of smell is not so keen as that of a dog, who can detect the
tiny quail while they are still invisible; nor have we the piercing sight
of the eagle who spies the grouse crouching hundreds of feet beneath his
circling flight; but when we walk through the bare December woods there is
unfolded at last to our eyes evidence of the late presence of our summer's
feathered friends--air castles and tree castles of varied patterns and
delicate workmanship.

Did it ever occur to you to think what the first nest was like--what home
the first reptile-like scale flutterers chose? Far back before Jurassic
times, millions of years ago, before the coming of bony fishes, when the
only mammals were tiny nameless creatures, hardly larger than mice; when
the great Altantosaurus dinosaurs browsed on the quaint herbage, and
Pterodactyls--those ravenous bat-winged dragons of the air--hovered above
the surface of the earth,--in this epoch we can imagine a pair of
long-tailed, half-winged creatures which skimmed from tree to tree,
perhaps giving an occasional flop--the beginning of the