234 NATURE STUDY. 



thology. Reference to one of each class will suffice. The 

 serra was the sea-serpent of those good old days — eight 

 hundred years ago — and terrified the navigators of that 

 time pretty much as the sailor-boys of this ^ay are ' ' inter- 

 ested " by a floating tree-trunk or a " string raft " of sea- 

 weed. This serra had wings like a bird, had a head like 

 a lion and a tail similar to a fish. When the serra saw a 

 ship it went to it at once, and boldly rising to full height 

 with outstretched wings, it " took the wind from the ship's 

 sails and so held her becalmed." 



The birds catalogued and described b}- de Thaun are as 

 curious and queer as the animals. The asida has two 

 feet like a camel and the wings of a bird. On seeing a 

 certain star that appears each July, it .scoops a hole in the 

 unshaded sand and lays its eggs therein. The asida ate 

 and digested iron and stones, " Androvaudus denies this. 

 I deny not but he might see one asida which excluded his 

 iron undigested; but one Swallow makes no Summer." 

 What well known African bird is here described ? 



Richmond, Ky. 



Nature Study Lessons. XXIV. 



BY EDWMRD J. BURNHAM. 



The great order Hj-menoptera includes not only the 

 ants, bees and wasps, with some of which every one is fa- 

 miliar, but also many insects which are little if at all 

 known even to the entomologists. In size they range all 

 the way from the clumsy bumble-bee to creatures so small 

 that they hatch, live and grow to full size in the tiny eggs 

 of other insects, or in the bodies of insects themselves so 

 small as .scarcely to be seen without the aid of a magnifier. 



No one can reasonably expect to make a complete collec- 

 tion of the .species of Hymenoptera to be found in his own 

 neighborhood, and in a lifetime, to say nothing of making 



