184 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



The Home Aquarium and How to Care for 



It. A Guide to Its Fishes, Other Ani- 

 mals, and Plants, with many Illustra- 

 tions. By Eugene Smith. New York 

 City: E. P. Button & Company. 

 Mr. Smith is an aquariist; he knows what 

 he is writing about. He has produced a 

 convenient handbook, especially for those 

 who wish to establish home aquaria. 



more of the knowledge which was to 

 prepare him for his greatest work, in 

 his daily tasks, the "chores" about the 

 farm, which are always waiting for the 

 younger part of any family surrounded 



Flying Plover: His Stories, Told Him by 

 Stniat-hy-the-fire, By G. E. Theodore 

 Roberts. Illustrated and decorated by 

 Charles Livingston Bull. L. C. Page & 

 Company. 

 Plover is a young boy in Labrador. The 

 book contains stories told by his grand- 

 mother. "The old woman's name was 

 Squat-by-the-fire. She was the wisest per- 

 son in the tribe, in spite of the fact that 

 an old man who lived in another village 

 said that he knew twice as much as any- 

 body in the whole world. She was deep 

 in medicine and history and story-telling. 

 She could paint fine pictures on bark and 

 cured skins, and was skilful in the carving 

 of wonderful little figures in wood and bone 

 and walrus ivory. She knew so much, and 

 looked so wise, and had such bright eyes, 

 that many of the tribesmen believed that 

 she was a magician." 



John Walton Spencer: "Uncle John." 



BY ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK, 

 ITHACA, N. Y. 



It is by the second name at the head 

 of this article that the man I am to 

 write about is best and most widely 

 known. Frequently letters came to 

 him, addressed in sprawling, unformed 

 hand-writing to, "Uncle John, Cornell 

 University," with no mention of sur- 

 name, or of city or state. Postal clerks 

 got used to such a state of affairs, and 

 when the much-prized replies were 

 taken from the office, the children's 

 confidence in their friend was justified. 

 And so, it is about "Uncle John" 

 that I prefer to write. He was born at 

 Cherry Valley, New York, in June of 

 1843, but soon afterward his parents 

 moved to Westfield, in Chautauqua 

 County. The moving was not accom- 

 plished by stepping aboard of a train 

 in the morning, and arriving at their 

 destination on the same day. They 

 traveled by the packet-boat on the Erie 

 Canal to Buffalo, and from thence to 

 Westfield by Lake Erie schooner, a 

 "two-master." 



He grew up on the farm, attending 

 the district school, but getting far 



"UNCLE JOHN" WALTON SPENCER 



by the growing things which make up 

 most of the farmer's work and life. 

 Even his experience as a business man 

 was strongly biased by the influence of 

 his farm up-bringing. "I made my 

 first money by a venture in ducks," 

 he wrote to a lad who had asked him 

 "how a fellow could make a little 

 money of his own." "I dropped po- 

 tatoes for a neighbor all one warm day 

 in May and received in payment my 

 dinner and thirteen duck eggs, which 

 I set under a 'broody' hen borrowed 

 from another neighbor;" and then fol- 

 lowed the amusing story of his early 

 cares as a prooerty-holder and the 

 amount of his final profits. 



A term at the select school supple- 

 mented that of the home district and 

 with the coming of age came the young 

 man's desire to see the world. He 

 went west, saw San Francisco in the 



