ike the
hills of another world. A castle or church of brilliant white marble
glittered on the summit of one of the mountains near us, and, as the sun
went down without a cloud, the distant summits changed in hue to a glowing
purple, mounting almost to crimson, which afterwards darkened into a deep
violet. The western half of the sky was of a pale orange and the eastern a
dark red, which blended together in the blue of the zenith, that deepened
as twilight came on.

--Taylor: _Views Afoot_.

+Theme LXV.+--_Write a description in which the color element enters
largely._

5. _Animals, birds, fishes, etc._

The Tailless Tyke had now grown into an immense dog, heavy of muscle and
huge of bone. A great bull head; undershot jaw, square and lengthy and
terrible; vicious yellow gleaming eyes; cropped ears; and an expression
incomparably savage. His coat was a tawny lionlike yellow, short, harsh,
dense; and his back running up from shoulder to loins ended abruptly in a
knoblike tail. He looked like the devil of a dog's hell, and his
reputation was as bad as his looks. He never attacked unprovoked; but a
challenge was never ignored and he was greedy of insults.

--Alfred Ollivant: _Bob, Son of Battle_.
(Copyright, Doubleday and McClure.)

Read the description of the kingbird (page 224), and of the mongoose (page
242).

+Theme LXVI.+--_Write a description of some animal, bird, or fish._

(What questions should you ask yourself about each description you write?)

6. _Trees and plants._

How shall kinnikinnick be told to them who know it not? To a New Englander
it might be said that a whortleberry bush changed its mind one day and
decided to be a vine, with leaves as glossy as laurel, bells pink-striped
and sweet like the arbutus, and berries in clusters and of scarlet instead
of black. The Indians call it kinnikinnick, and smoke it in their pipes.
White men call it bearberry, I believe; and there is a Latin name for it,
no doubt, in the books. But kinnikinnick is the best,--dainty, sturdy,
indefatigable kinnikinnick, green and glossy all the year round, lovely at
Christmas and lovely among flowers at midsummer, as content and thrifty on
bare, rocky hillsides as in grassy nooks, growing in long, trailing
wreaths, five feet long, or in tangled mats, five feet across, as the rock
or the valley may need, and living bravely many weeks without water, to
make a house beautiful. I doubt if there be in the world a vine