NATURE'S REALM. 79 
He casts the luring fly with vigorous hand, 
And takes the lordly salmon as they leap. 
He seeks the depths of Adirondack wilds, 
Where the primeval forests weave their shade, 
And there his feather’d hook and pliant rod 
Take springing trout from ripple and cascade. 
Isaac McLellan. 


. The Thrush's Song. 
Listen to the thrush’s sadd’ning song 
Deep in the forest glade, 
_ Where perched within the shade, 
He sings the whole day long ; 
Sweet, yet sad the notes he trills, 
His dulcet harmony thrills. 
Yet, though his notes are sad, he sings of love, 
Of happiness profound ; 
With joy abound 
The creatures of his house, the verdant grove. 
In rivalry the happy songsters chirp and sing, 
A minstrelsy of love and he is king. 
We know him by his penetrating, pleasing song, 
Sweet bird of silvery tongue, 
With Nature’s m-lody strung ; 
Attune with heavenly harp thy sweetest strains prolong. 
Ah! during winter’s grasp the grove is still ; 
Then vainly do we pause to hear thy gentle trill. 
W. G. 
A HEATED WELL. 
A strange phenomenon is reported from the 
Indian Nation. Some time ago a white man 
named Chas. Gooding, living near Goodland, 
a station on the Frisco Road in the Choctaw 
Nation, employed an Irish well-digger, Mike 
Duhaney, to sink a well on his place. Du- 
haney began work and had reached a depth of 
sixty feet. At noon Saturday, after eating din- 
ner, his assistants began lowering him back 
into the well to resume work, but he had 
hardly gone twenty feet when he screamed to 
them to pull him out quick, that he was burn- 
ing up. As hurriedly as possible he was 
hoisted out, but on reaching the surface was 
unconscious and it required two haurs’ hard 
work to restore him. He was found in a piti- 
able condition, his clothing being scorched un- 
til it crumbled at the touch, and his body was 
fearfully blistered. The intense heat seemed 
to raise from the bottom, and a coat lying on 
the windlass, and the rope wound around it, 
were all charred until they broke into frag- 
ments at a touch. No flame could be seen. 
Simply an intense heat could be felt. 
The denizens of the neighborhood are not 
only puzzled but badly scared, as they do not 
know what will next happen, their mildest idea - 
being that a volcano slumbers beneath, 

SPEED OF WASPS AND BEEs. 
A writer in the Scot’s Observer says that he 
has sprinkled individual wasps and bees with 
rose-colored powder, and has found that thus 
handicapped they could with ease keep up with 
the fastest. trains when speeding down ‘ Shap 
Summit,” the steepest gradient in Scotland. 
Nor were these carried along in the rush of air 
caused by the train. They would come inand 
out of the window, sometimes disappearing for 
a minute or more, but frequently returning 
again and again. At distances of from five to 
ten miles they dropped behind, when others 
took their place. 
THE LAND OF DUCKs. 
There are more ducks in the Chinese Em- 
pire, says an authority, than in all the world 
outside of it. They are kept by the Celestials 
on every farm, on the private roads, on the 
public roads, on streets of cities and on all the 
lakes, ponds, rivers, streams and brooks in the 
country. Every Chinese boat also contains a 
batch of them. There are innumerable hatch- 
ing establishments all through the Empire, 
many of which are said to turn out about 50,000 
young ducks every year. Salted and smoked 
ducks and duck’s eggs constitute two of the 
most common and important articles of diet in 
China. 
ETERNAL GROWTH. 
Even the things that seem to die, 
But change their form, to spring again 
In form more fair, in worth more high, 
Through Nature’s ceaseless travail pain ; 
As fecund seed to earth consigned 
Decays, yet yields a hundred-fold, 
As faggots burned still leave behind 
Their substance, which no power can hold. 
By herb-fed flesh our life is nursed, 
But earth, herbs’ food, was rock at first. 
Thus Nature strains from high to higher, 
And all things toward their source aspire. 
Clou d’ Argent, 
