Mother. He is very hungry, and is working for his food. You would be glad to work, too, Robert, for your food, if you could not get it in any other way. And you should be willing to work for it, which, perhaps, you may yet have to do.

Robert. What is the wood-pecker's food, mother?

Mother. It is, principally, worms and insects, which he finds in the trunks of old, decayed trees.

Robert. But why does he make so much noise in finding them?

Mother. The worms and insects are deep in the wood, where other kinds of birds never could reach them.

His bill is long, straight, hard, and sharp; and like a wedge at the tip of it. His tongue is round, something like a worm; very long, so that it can come out three or four inches beyond the bill; and has at the end of it a stiff, sharp, bony thorn. This bony end of the tongue has little teeth, as it were, on each side of it, standing backward, like the barb of a fishhook.

With his bill he chisels out a hole in the wood; and this is what he was doing, when you saw him knocking (as you said), and heard a great noise that he made. He keeps chiseling, till he comes to where the worms or insects are; and then, he suddenly darts out his long tongue upon them; seizes them with the sharp, hooked end of it; and draws them into his mouth.

The wood-pecker chisels a hole for its nest, in which to lay its eggs; and these holes, often, are very deep, so that the eggs may be safe. The eggs are usually laid on the rotten wood; but, sometimes, moss or wool is put into the nest, for the eggs to lie on.

You see what contrivance and skill are shown in the bill and tongue of this curious bird. You know the

design with which they were made,-to enable the woodpecker to get food, and to make a nest; and you are just as sure that God made them, and made them for this purpose, as that a chisel was made by some one, and that it was made to cut with, into wood. A man has a mallet to drive the chisel with; but the woodpecker's head is his mallet, and his skull is unusually thick, that his head may bear the jarring which his hard knocks make.

I read lately an account of a wood-pecker which, I think, will interest you.

He made a deep hole, just as exactly and neatly as if it had been made with a mallet and chisel, to the very centre of the branch of a young, tough, white oak tree. The branch was from three to five inches round. He did this to find a worm, called à borer. The worm had made a hole in the branch, about as large round as a goose quill, four or five inches below the hole chiseled out by the wood-pecker. The worm was going upward, inside of the branch, when the woodpecker made his hole, just in the right place, to catch the worm with his barbed tongue, and devour him.

These worms injure the trees; and the wood-pecker, and other birds, which devour worms and insects, do a great deal of good. It is quite a pity that they should be killed.-Gallaudet.

LESSON III.-THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM.

It was a summer evening,

Old Kaspar's work was done,

And he before his cottage door

Was sitting in the sun,

And by him sported on the green,

His little grandchild, Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother, Peterkin,

Roll something large and round, That he beside the rivulet,

In playing there, had found:

She ran to ask what he had found,

That was so large, and smooth, and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,

Who stood expectant by;

And then the old man shook his head,

And with a natural sigh,

"'Tis some poor fellow's skull,” said he, "Who fell in the great victory."

"I find them in the garden, for
There's many hereabout;
And often when I go to plough,

The ploughshare turns them out!
For many thousand men," said he,
“Were slain in that great victory."

"Now, tell us what 'twas all about,"
Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up,
With wonder-waiting eyes;
"Now tell us all about the war,
And what they killed each other for."

"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
"That put the French to rout;
But what they killed each other for,
I could not well make out;
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory.

They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;

So with his wife and child he fled,

And knew not where to rest his head.

"With fire and sword, the country round They wasted far and wide,

And many a childing-mother then,
And new-born infant, died;

But things like that, you know, must be,
At every famous victory.

"They say it was a shocking sight,

After the field was won;

For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun!

But things like that, you know, must be,

After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won

And our good Prince Eugene." "Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!"

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Said little Wilhelmine.

Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he,

"It was a famous victory.

"And everybody praised the Duke,

Who this great fight did win.”

"But what good came of it at last?"

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Quoth little Peterkin.

'Why, that I cannot tell," said he;

“But 'twas a famous victory."-Southey.

LESSON IV.-THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH.

The world on which we live is a sphere or globe. To our sight, indeed, it appears flat, not round; but this is only because we are able to see so small a portion of it at once. It was formerly supposed to be an immense plain; but this was a false conjecture. We have many proofs of the roundness of the earth. If we look at any distant object, we invariably see the highest part of it first; and as we approach, more of it becomes visible, the lowest portion being always the last to appear in sight. So, in receding from any object, the lowest part is always the first to disappear, and the remainder gradually vanishes, the topmost point being always the last to fade from our view. If the world were a plain, this would not be the case. The same thing may be observed by the sea coast, in looking at distant ships. At first, the top of the mast only is seen, then the sails and ropes, and at last, the whole hull. In sailing on board a ship away from the land, objects in the same manner become invisible to us, exactly in the order of their height. reason sailors at sea, when looking out for land, always ascend the mast, well knowing that they will be able to discern it from that height before it is visible from the deck.

For this

There are other proofs of the rotundity of the earth. Navigators, by sailing onwards as nearly as possible in the same direction, have at length reached the place from which they started, thus sailing round the earth. Magellan was the first who performed this voyage. Captain Cook afterwards found, during his voyages in the Southern Ocean, that the course round the earth diminishes gradually as the Pole is approached.