examples, the resemblance between seaweeds and the plant-like animals called sertularia is, to say the least of it, very deceptive. At the bottom of the illustration on page 875 (which contains a representation of the jelly-fish floating on the surface of a calm sea, compared with the mushrooms seen in the smaller circular picture) is figured the sea-mushroom, which so perfectly resembles petrified mushroom that it is very often taken for the latter imaginary object when seen in cabinets or collections by persons who have paid no special attention to natural history. A volume might well be written on this subject-a volume replete with new facts, new principles, and new thoughts. It is a field as yet but imperfectly explored, presenting difficult questions but partially and imperfectly answered. A few chapters in the works of Wallace, Bates, Belt, and perhaps one or two other naturalists, an article or two in magazines, comprise almost all the literature on the subject-a subject, it is safe to predict, that will grow to the proportions of a science when the interest of those fitted by ability and especial education is awakened, and their investigations concentrated upon it. THE CATTLE RANCHES OF COLORADO. THE HE traveller who journeys west ward in our favored land "I don't half like," once remarked a Scotch fellowtraveller of the writer, to a friendly group at Denver, "the promotion back war-r-d which I receive. East of Chicago I was Colonel; at Chicago I was Major; at Omaha a man called me Captain, and offered me dinner for thir-r-ty-five cents!" One of the group, after a careful survey of the face and figure before him, the kindly yet keen expression, and the iron-gray whiskers, replied: "You ain't Colonel wuth a cent. I allow that you're Jedge!" And Jedge" he was from that time forth. Nobody called him anything else. Newly made acquaintances, landlords, stage-drivers, conductors, all used this title, until his companions began to feel as THE BURROS. if they had known him all his life in that capacity. So when, a short time since, an "honest Aside from all matters of external interest, there is that pleasant association between the passengers such as one finds on an ocean steamer, and the types of character are even more original and striking. It was a person of a rare and quaint humor who fraternized with us in the smoking compartment one pleasant evening, and it was no small addition to our enjoyment to hear him laugh heartily at his own narratives. He had been travelling on a line where there was great competition, and the rates had been reduced from eight dollars and a half to fifty cents, the curious expedient being adopted of charging the full fare, and then returning the eight dollars at the end of the journey. miner," with whom the writer was con- | who can not derive great enjoyment from versing amicably at Kansas City, remark- his journey from the Missouri to the mounted, 'Wa'al, Colonel, I allow that when ains in these days of comfort and convenyou git out there on the range in Coloray-ience. do, you'll say it's a white man's country," the person addressed well knew that his rank was finally settled. So the "Colonel," who might be called unattached, having no regiment and no staff, but having what was far better for his peaceful and descriptive purposes, the companionship of an artist coadjutor whose nautical achievements had gained for him among his friends the distinguished naval sobri- | quet of "Commodore," settled himself in his seat, and was whirled off in the direction of the "white man's country." It must not be hastily assumed that when one uses this expression in the West he has the sentiments of certain campaign orators at heart, and means that the country must belong to a white man, rather than a black, or even a red man. It is rather a condensation of the popular Western phrase, Fit for a white man to live in." With this requirement in view, does Colorado "fill the bill?" That is what we were going to try to find out; and of all the phases of life in this presumedly "white man's country," the herding and breeding of cattle easily commanded our attention at the outset. What this is in theory we all know, the primitive Scriptural occupation, the grand, free, independent, health-giving, out-of-door existence, the praises of which have been sung through all ages. To how many pale, thin, hard-working city dwellers does the thought of "the cattle upon a thousand hills," the rare dry air of the elevated plateau, and the continual and ennobling sight of the mighty mountains bring strangely vivid emotions and longings! And when one goes out to put the matter to the test, these emotions are all quite legitimate, and will do him no harm if he allow not their indulgence to abate in him one whit of a truly Gradgrind-like demand for Facts. "Now there's some folks," once said an old plainsman, "who complain of a trip across the country in a Pullman car. I wonder what they'd 'a said if they'd had to ride in a bull team, or drag a hand-cart all the way!" No more striking contrast, indeed, can anywhere be found than between old times and new on the plains, and he can hardly be a traveller worthy of the name 66 "I've heerd of back pay before," said he, "but I never got any until I fell into line at the ticket office. Did ye get yours?" he asked of the Commodore. What, no? Ye bought a ticket, an give it up, an' took a check? Wa'al, you did just everlastingly give yourself away. But ye warn't so bad as a feller that come on the train with a pass. An' when the conductor see it, he said it warn't no use, an' he'd just trouble him for nine dollars. An' when the feller jumped up, just like this, an' got the light on the pass, an' see it was the opposition road, he was the wust beat feller you ever see!" Thus it was that we beguiled the way until the mountains took shape in the hazy distance the famed Spanish Peaks on the south, the "Greenhorn" range almost in front, and stern old Pike's Peak on the north-and the train rolled into Pueblo. When local parlance is thus adopted, and local appellations thus used, it is done under mental protest, and with a strong sense of their entire unfitness. The Spanish-speaking people who dwelt here, and the far-famed old Chevalier St. Vrain and his French hunters and trappers, who traversed the plains and the foot-hills, gave names to the mountains and streams which were as appropriate and melodious as those of the Indians before them. About mines, telegraphs, and railroads, however, there is nothing of the aesthetic; and it has remained for the progressive Anglo-Saxon to repudiate La Fontaine qui bouille, Sierra Mojada, and Uncompahgre, and introduce Hardscrab whose intelligent guidance and kind attentions would have made us pleasurably remember a far less enterprising and progressive town than Pueblo, which may be called the emporium of the cattle trade of Southern Colorado. It is still young, and its growth was retarded by "the panic;" but it is now getting its full share of the prosperity Now the Colonel | which has come to the Centennial State, and the twenty-five people who were there in 1865 have grown to between six and seven thousand. It has two daily papers, two railroad dépôts, two national banks, with goodly lists of stock-raising depositors, and two school-houses in juxtaposition, a sketch of which will give a good idea of the old and the new in Pueblo. Like many other Western settlements, it has had, too, its baptism of blood. It was a trading post of stout old "AN' WHEN THE FELLER JUMPED UP." ble and the Greenhorn. Not Kit Carson, or old William Bent, or the Chevalier St. Vrain himself, however, could have had a warmer welcome ready for us than did our friend Major Stanton, who met us on the platform, and William Bent, and became other than this | back of an animal known in Colorado as only in 1858, when the gold excitement began, and "Pike's Peak or Bust" was the motto painted on the canvas cover of each prairie schooner, or emigrant wag on. One may still see, near the handsome stone station of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad, the remains of the old fort into which, when, on Christmas-day, 1854, the residents, thoughtless of danger, were gathered around the fire and enjoying the festive season, the Ute Indians broke, with brandished tomahawks and wild war-cries, and massacred nearly all. Throughout the region of country tributary to Pueblo-where are found, besides the nutritious grasses and running streams, which are indispensable, a genial climate and mild winters-are scattered cattle ranches, great and small, including the immense Craig property, often mentioned in Eastern papers, and of which more anon. It was to "Uncle Pete Dotson's," situated about thirty miles southwest from the town, and close to the Greenh- no, the Sierra Mojada, or Wet Mountain range, that we were bound. Preparations had been made for the trip, and all would doubtless have gone well but for an unconquerable propensity on the part of the Commodore to attempt to conform in a feeble and uninstructed way to the customs of the country. He had already purchased an enormous and most unbecoming hat, and then happily proceeded to lose it, much to the satisfaction of his friends. Now he was possessed of a desire to continue his pilgrimage on the a burro, and in other lands as a Jerusalem pony, or small donkey. Now the burro has doubtless his place in the economy of nature, but it is in a sphere hitherto undiscovered by the present writer. Useful he may possibly be; ornamental he certainly is not; ugly and obstreperous and unmanageable he most certainly is. In the words of the old song, "our sorrows did begin" when the Commodore insisted on having one, and on the Colonel's doing the same. In vain did the latter plead that no more ridiculous sight could be found east of the mountains than his tall form, clad in the garments of civilization, mounted on this diminutive brute. He pointed out with eloquence that he had always maintained a fair reputation for dignity; that Pueblo was on one of the roads from New York to Denver, and that some one from home might see him; nay, even that he had a wife and family. The Commodore was inexorable, and fell back on that unanswerable plea that "his 'pard' must not go back on him." Two of the atrocious animals were thereupon procured, and the pair mounted-one jubilant, the other inwardly raging. The Commodore thought it a most comfortable and convenient mode of progression, and said that by holding umbrellas over our heads we might ride all the way to Uncle Pete's, to which conclusion the Colonel owed a speedy though short-lived triumph. Our good friend and entertainer, with a nice sense of the fitness of things, had provided for the journey a convenient vehicle, with a basket under the seat, and |