344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, ' Adsum ! ' and fell back. 

 It was the word we used at school when names were called, and lo, he, 

 whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, 

 and stood in the presence of The Master." 



Sadder than death is it, however, when the brain perishes before 

 the body. " How often, alas, we see," says Wendell Holmes, " the 

 mighty satirist tamed into oblivious imbecility ; the great scholar 

 wandering without sense of time or place, among his alcoves, taking 

 his books one by one from the shelves and fondly patting them : 

 a child once more among his toys, but a child whose to-morrows come 

 hungry, and not full-handed — come as birds of prey in the place of the 

 sweet singers of morning. We must all become as little children if 

 we live long enough ; but how blank an existence the wrinkled infant 

 must carry into the kingdom of heaven, if the Power that gave him 

 memory does not repeat the miracle by restoring it ! " — Cornhill 

 Magazine. 



-♦«♦- 



AN EPISODE ON EATS. 



npHE Norway rat, of which we wish to say a few words, is the Zem- 

 -L ming, a species of the mouse-tribe, somewhat smaller than the 

 Guinea-pig, to which in form it bears a considerable resemblance, only 

 the head and body are flatter. Its length is about six inches, of which 

 the short stump of a tail forms half an inch. It is black in color, mot- 

 tled with tawny spots, which vary in their disposition in different in- 

 dividuals, and the belly is white, with a slight tinge of yellow. The 

 fore-legs are short and strong, and the hind-legs are nearly one-half 

 longer than the former, enabling it to run with considerable speed. 

 The feet are armed with strong hooked claws, five in number, enabling 

 it to burrow in the earth, and among the frozen snows of its native 

 region. Its cheeks are blanched, and it sports a pair of long light 

 whiskers, and its eyes, though small, are beautifully black and pier- 

 cing. The lip is divided, and the ears are small and sharply pointed. 

 As its home borders on the region of eternal snow, in the valleys of 

 the Kolen Mountains, which separate Sweden from Nordland, its hair 

 is both thick and soft, and becomes almost white during the long and 

 cheerless winter of these inhospitable regions. The skin is much thin- 

 ner than in any of its congeners. When enraged it gives utterance to 

 a sharp yelp, similar to that of a month-old terrier- whelp. 



It is a lively little fellow, when met with in its native haunts, dur- 

 ing the short summer — now sitting on its haunches nibbling at a piece 

 of lichen, or the catkins of the birch, which it conveys to its mouth 

 with its fore-paws, after the manner of the squirrel, or engaging in a 

 romp with its fellows, popping in and out of its burrow in the earth 



