Wor] AND SYMBOLS. 397 



pungent odour, which adheres to the hands or clothes so per- 

 tinaciously that many washings are required before it is ex- 

 pelled. Yet it is sparing enough even of this solitary weapon, 

 and may after a while be handled without any inconvenience. 



c. o. 



The Self-Satisfied Woman. 



The dear lady full of maxims, little prim notions, wise saws, 

 proverbs, and nursery lore, with her consequential, self-satisfied 

 mien how often we have seen her ! We have heard her 

 called in derision "the dear old hen." And really, derision 

 apart, there is some resemblance between this queen and that 

 feathered one. The hen reared in the confined, strict notions of 

 her class, never forgets for a moment the limits nor the duties 

 of her station. Her sober mind abhors all innovation and ex- 

 travagance. She will have nothing to do with those doubtful 

 virtues which we proudly call elegance, refinement, high- 

 breeding, or which we at once sum up in the term "polite 

 education." The fantastical rockings, the buoyant soaring in 

 mid- air, the art of song and nest-building, which the world 

 admires in other birds, are to her as nought. As her ancestors 

 were before her will she remain ; and like her dress, so in 

 thought and deed, is she plain and citizen-like. " Stay at home 

 and get an honest livelihood ! " is what she exclaims to her 

 sons and daughters, amidst whom she walks with a high sense 

 of her importance. She tells them of her own peaceful exist- 

 ence, of her young and her old days ; and flinging a precept to 

 one and a caress to another, she nods her well-frizzled top-knot 

 with discreet gravity. ST. 



Great Power in Little Workers. 



The strength of invertebrate animals is, relatively speaking, 

 immense. Many persons have observed how out of proportion 

 the jump of a flea is to its size. A flea is not more than, an 

 eighth of an inch in length, and it jumps a yard; in proportion, 

 a lion ought to jump two- thirds of a mile. Pliny shows in 

 his Natural History that the weights carried by ants appear 

 exceedingly great when they are compared with the size of the 



