Do you see that glitter between the trees? It's a magnificent trinket, of which Nature has left a number hereabouts. It's a mirror, and how it came here, and all about it, is, as nearly as any body knows, in this wise. Some day or other, NATURE made her toilet here, preparatory to going out upon the Prairies; and while she was arranging her hair, putting on her flowered sandals, and letting down her broidered skirts, that she had gathered up as she crossed the Alleghanies, she caught a glimpse of the Prairie she had come to smile on, and forgot she was in dishabille, and left her "things "-mirrors, and flounces, and furbelows, and all-scattered about, and never thought of them again, for away she tripped and smiled.

Well, that glitter you see, is one of the "aids to reflection" she threw aside as she ran, and it was shattered into ever so many beautiful fragments, and among them is PINE LAKE, where, "an you will," we are this very instant. It's a sunny day; we, upon the margin of the Lake; the water, crystal; you, looking down. And looking, you see, lying motionless, a NAVIGATOR older than Noah or Jason, or any of those "outside barbarians;" a sailor whose forefishes were literally of the first water.'

Gaily attired, isn't he?-in a close-fitting suit of three-cent pieces, with a row of gold dollars on each side, all laid over and over. Your shadow lies along the water; move a little, and you'll see that the fellow's Defences are altogether with Valor's wife, his "better part," Discretion. But first, lest you cannot, a moment hence, see that oar lying carelessly over the stern of the silvery craft. Now move. There! Wasn't that a specimen of scientific sculling!' Just a flash or two, like a little scimetar, and Navigator, three-cent pieces, oars and all are out of sight like a Nautilus, without a "Clearance," a signal, a "by your leave," or any thing of the sort.

Speaking of Signals: there's some body creeping through the grass, every night, with a lantern, and there are more than one of them-both bodies and lanterns; and it's either love or war; a battle-lantern or a love-light, and it makes little difference which they may be skirmishing, they are certainly 'sparking.' The GLOW WORM is the owner of that light, and, little brown creature as it is, it has a rare and beautiful possession-finding, may be, its way through the night; signalling, it may be, the "Allied Powers," in some tremendous war that "John S. C. Abbott " never heard of; seeking, perhaps, its mate.

There's a black bug, homely as sin. Catch him, and he gives you a glimpse of a diamond he is carrying about him; and you spare him, of course, because he is one of Night and Nature's jewellers. How gallantly he‘shows a light,' in the offing over the marsh. On the starboard, the larboard; to windward, to leeward; alow and aloft. But the dawn steals on, and the great stars and the little bug together, "pale their ineffectual fires."

The first two "signs"—if any body will credit it— have slipped the halter of the Zodiac, and ARIES and TAURUS are lords of the pasture, trumpeters of flock and herd, with two horns a-piece. A slight accident to the mason-work about Jericho, recorded in Bible History, having been particularly impressed upon my mind, I pay special attention to Geography, as defined by a very devious rail fence, and take good care to keep on this side of it, confessing to no penchant for swelling a concordance, by figuring in a "parallel passage.'

So it is, every where, with every thing. Armed capà-pie, and if not armed, supplied with some means of evasion, disguise or retreat. This moment, a fellow of the BEETLE tribe comes hurtling through the air, tumbling about in the candle-light, blundering against

walls and windows, with his everlasting hum-drum of wings, like a bee in a hollyhock. And what do you think he's done? Caught up a pair of tongs and joined in the grand melee! There he goes, if you don't believe it, the tongs thrust out in front of him, wide open, and ready to come lovingly together with a will. Try him, if you doubt it.

“Tr-tr-trr-rt-rt-rrt!” There's a watchword, or a pass-word from that cherry tree; and where is the little Look-out? On that leaf" with a strange device." By St. Patrick! 'tis a TOAD in disguise! Nothing like the salient chap in a dusty leather roundabout, that takes position nightly on the outside cellar door,' but a gay fellow. Break the limb, gently-so; and you have him exactly under your eye. His delicate white kid throat works like a little bellows. His back-just the color of the leaf he lies on, and how beautifully varnished-four or five coats, shouldn't you think? His sides-a specimen of imitation of woods, that might deceive Leather Stocking himself. His eyes--overlaid round about with gold-leaf, and warranted never to tarnish. Invisible in his Kendall green, (if it be Kendall,) he uses those compound levers of his, and leaps from tree to tree and bough to bough, prophesying, in a

3

small way, of clouds and rain, and such like, and answering from out the rustling green, to his fellow.

What then are your Springfield Armory, your Paixhans, and even your floating walls of wood, to the arms and munitions of war strown about this quiet farm? What shields and helmets! what coats of mail and disguises! what broadswords and rapiers! what signals and war-cries! what prowess and stratagem are here! In the grass, the bushes the earth; on trees, fences, every where! Who will not say, that in comparison with "OUR DEFENCES," all the devices of your cunning workers in iron and in steel, are children's idle toys!

Digging for a Subject.

DON'T say a word till I'm done. You'll waste an invoice of indignation that were better saved, if you do; and besides, it wouldn't be "manners." I am no resurrectionist; and if I do dig for a "subject,” I don't find it in a cemetery nor put it in a sack, but just take the head-mind! the head-as Herodias did, and serve it up, not on a platter, but on a paper, es Herodias didn't. Taking a hoe this morning, (could