POPULAR MISCELLANT. 



861 



hardly any deformity or shortening are 

 largely due to the material assistance af- 

 forded by the quills of the primary and sec- 

 ondary feathers, which act as splints. Were 

 this not the case, and if deformity ensued, 

 the bird would be crippled in its power of 

 flight, or deprived of it. 



Food and Economical Plants of Abys- 

 sinia< — The most important of the food- 

 plants of Abyssinia is the taff [Poa Abyssin- 

 ica), a cereal bearing grains as small as a 

 pin's head, from which the general bread is 

 made. An inferior black bread is made 

 from a kind of millet that grows in low 

 grounds. Roasted flax-seed is sometimes 

 eaten. The flower-stock of the plantain, 

 cooked with milk and butter, is very tender, 

 has the flavor of new bread somewhat un- 

 derdone, and is an excellent dish. From the 

 leaves of the cTisete mats are made. The 

 eeca, an asclepiad, furnishes a tough fiber, 

 which is used in making cordage and twines. 

 Other fibers, for various uses, are furnished 

 by the bark of the Calotropis giganica ; and 

 the tender leaves newly pulled from the stipe 

 of the doum-palm are wound into all kinds 

 of matting and basket-ware. The powdered 

 seed of a large tree called herebera {MilcUia 

 ferruginea) is thrown into the water to stu- 

 pefy fish, and makes it more easy to catch 

 them. The chief articles of export are 

 calves' hides, salted and dried, beeswax, 

 ivory, tamarinds, ostrich -feathers, gutta- 

 percha, gum arable, mother-of-pearl, leopard- 

 skins, musk, honey, and tobacco. 



Interest in Reading. — The primary ob- 

 ject of ordinary reading or study, Mr. Bal- 

 four holds, in his rectorial address at St. 

 Andrews, is the enjoyment to be obtained 

 by the possession and acquirement of knowl- 

 edge. Knowledge is most easily attained in 

 those subjects which we like most and take 

 most interest in ; and by that principle we 

 should be directed to the kind of reading 

 which we should take up. By the same 

 principle we should not try to read the books 

 on the list of the hundred or so best, merely 

 because they are on the list ; but when our 

 interest is fixed on a particular line, the list 

 is good to refer to for the best books bear- 

 ing upon it. What interests the ordinary 

 man at one time does not interest him at an- 



other; but "his interests change with the 

 changes that are going on around him in the 

 world. He sees some natural curiosity, reads 

 something in the newspapers, hears of some 

 incident or character in history, or goes to 

 some place which awakens his interest and 

 attention, and induces him to read. If the 

 ordinary man, then, is to read what interests 

 him, he is pretty sure to read widely, and 

 therefore necessarily, since life is short, su- 

 perficially. . . . Now, can it be said, that 

 the man who reads hke this, with freshness 

 and vigor, eager to find out something, to 

 get light on a subject dark to him before, 

 will not get more knowledge, and so benefit 

 himself vastly more, than the man who, with 

 slow and painful steps, heavily plods through 

 a list of books, though that Ust has on it all 

 the masterpieees of creation ? " 



Honse-top Snmmer-Resorts. — A plau to 

 make our house-tops useful is sketched by 

 Dr. Gouverneur M. Smith, in a paper on 

 "Wasted Sunbeams — Unused House-tops." 

 The Oriental has no difiiculty in the matter ; 

 he lives on the top of his house a consider- 

 able part of the year, and builds his roof 

 with an especial eye to that sort of occupa- 

 tion. Why may not we ? By pitching our 

 tents upon them, or by taking them as they 

 are, except that the roof -coverings would have 

 to be made more solid, we might make our 

 roofs comfortable sojourniug-places and in- 

 expensive summer health-resorts. " Roof- 

 ing," says the author, " can be contrived 

 suited to this climate, and enduring as pave- 

 ment. A pleasure resort might ornament 

 each residence, its limits bounded by the 

 area of the dwelling ; neighborly consent 

 could widen the range, turf and flowers 

 brightening the plan. Iron-framed and glass- 

 inclosed rooms or cupolas could be added, 

 which would prove useful during all seasons, 

 artificial heat tempering brumal inclemency. 

 If such adaptation of house-tops would be 

 an advantage to the affluent, who can escape 

 city life during the summer, how much 

 greater advantage would be secured to the 

 tenement-house districts ! . . . For the high- 

 er graded tenement - houses, such fresh-air 

 facilities would be hailed with delight by 

 the inmates. The proximity of open breath- 

 ing-places totheir rooms would endear their 

 humble homes. Summer moonlight even- 



