READING A CHECK-LIST 



the most original of characters, a pretty strict 

 recluse, but, when in the mood for it, making 

 noise enough for two or three, was named from 

 a specimen taken in that English village (or city, 

 or hamlet, whichever it is) almost a hundred 

 years ago. How it came to be so far from home is 

 a puzzle, — to you, at any rate, — as it is, like- 

 wise, how the species had so long eluded scien- 

 tific description. Of all places in the world, that 

 our queer old stakedriver and pumper, after lift- 

 ing up its hollow, far-sounding voice in our grassy 

 American meadows from time immemorial, should 

 have been obliged to go to Piddletown, England, 

 for its christening ! 



A Boston deacon, a devout and, better still, a 

 good man, once remarked to his Sunday-school 

 class (I can hear his voice now, after more than 

 forty years), " There 's a lot of good reading in 

 John," meaning in the Gospel that, rightly or 

 wrongly, passes under the name of that favorite 

 disciple. And so, I repeat, there 's plenty of good 

 reading in the Check-List. 



Once more (for in this alluring and easy kind 

 of study your "finallies " and "lastlies " and "in 

 conclusions " are liable to be as many as tailed 

 out those long-winded, old-fashioned sermons to 

 which you listened, if you did listen, in your 

 childhood, while the enviable man seated at the 

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