3S4r 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
[COPYKIOHT SKCTTRED.] 
D E F I A N C E. — After Phof. Suis, Dusseldokf. — Published by Permission of Edmund Forster & Co., 54 Maiden Lane. 
The old hen had sat patiently, and at last her care was 
rewarded by some squatty, downy things with. broad bills 
and which made a sound unlike the chicks she had been 
accustomed to raise. They were ducklings ; still she 
cared for them as if they had been chickens. They would 
come quickly enough if she called them to food, but were 
Blow to obey her summons to hover. Soon these duck- 
lings began to disregard the calls of the old hen alto- 
gether, and at last concluded that they would go oft" by 
themselves and see the world. They had paddled in the 
water put for them to drink, and knew that there was 
more water somewhere to be found. The old hen cluck- 
ed and gave her strongest warnings, hut the broad-bills 
did not mind these— they started for the water. What 
they saw there the artist has shown. A green monster 
with prominent eyes and capacious mouth met them at 
the very entrance of that now region they were seeking. 
The artist has certainly shown the astonishment of the 
duckbngs at this unexpected meeting, but he does not 
let ns know whether they risked the dangers before 
them or went back to the care of the motherly old hen. 
It lias always seemed to ns that a duckling hatched by a 
hen is the most ungrateful of animals. It may be 
said that the hen is not the ducklings own mother. But 
we have seen boys and girls, who have received every 
benefit from those who were in no wise related to them, 
who would be quite as wayward and as disregarded of 
advice as the young ducks are to the clucking of the old 
ben, and are bound to see the world for themselves. It 
would have been well for them had they met such a sur- 
prise, at the start as did the ducklings in the picture. 
"Del.'* and "Se."— One who is evidently not a 
juvenile writes, asking what these abbreviations mean 
when attached to engravings. We answer him through 
these columns, as it is something which Boys and Girls 
ought to know. In earlier times all works upon science 
and art were written in Latin, that being the language of 
the learned in the days when there were no such things 
as common schools and popular education. Things are 
now wonderfully changed, but still some of the old Latin 
terms are retained. If you see at the bottom of an en- 
graving, John Smith, Del., that "Del. 11 is an abbrevia- 
tion of Dilinhvif, the Latin for "he drew it." If on 
another place you sec Joseph Jones, Sc., H means that 
Jones he cut or engraved it — Sctdpsii. Sometimes on 
pictures will be found Pin.r. or Plnxt — which stand for 
Pinxlt, he painted it. Perhaps the differences between 
drawing, painting, and engraving, are not well under- 
stood by our young friends. Some years ago — so long 
ago that our yotuig friends have become old ones, — we 
gave an account, of the whole matter. No doubt a de- 
scription of the way in which engravings arc made would 
interest our young readers, and we shall before long en- 
deavor to get our engravers to prepare some illustrations 
which will show them the way in which pictures arc 
made, and at the same time enable them to understand 
more about the "Del.," "Sc," and "Pinxt." 
Only a, BVbtole. 
A lady in Vineland, N. J., sends us a pebble about as 
large as a Lima bean, which is a piece of a very hard 
mineral— quartz. Quartz is one of our most common 
minerals, and appears in the greatest variety of forms. 
The purest sand is quartz with a little coloring matter. 
It is often found milky while, again granular and " crumb- 
ly" like loaf sugar, and again as transparent as glass. 
It is often found in the form of beautiful crystals, and 
when these are colored purple they are called amethysts. 
Boys and Girls should make collections of all the various 
stones and rocks that are found upon the farm and try to 
learn something about them. In most localities they 
will find nine out of ten of their specimens to be some 
form of quartz. But this pebble, hard enough to scratch 
glass, is worn as smooth as a bean, to which we have 
compared it in size. It was found inland, far from the 
sea. What rubbing and rolling it must at some time 
have had to bring its hard surface to such a shape ! 
Possibly before the human race was created this little 
pebble was ground to its prcseut shape and now comes 
to us to tell of an age farther in the past than we can 
think. It is only a little pebble, yet could it tell its 
history what a marvellous one it would be ! What force 
separated it from the mass to which it belonged ? What 
countless rollings of the surf of a now unknown sea 
rounded it ! When the bones of some mammoth animal 
of former ages are found, there is a great wonderment, 
and the learned write long articles about them. Yet the 
pebbles are by thousands all around us, and each one of 
them really as wonderful as the mammoth, if we look at 
it aright. It is not always the largest things that are best 
worth thinking of. The light of the little fire-fly is quite 
as much of a puzzle as that of the sun. The tiny moss is 
thought as interesting by the botanist as the largest 
oak tree. Each little pebble has a history, every 
leaf is a wonder, every flower speaks to us and asks us 
to admire its structure. Happy is the child who loves 
pebbles, plants, birds, and insects, and can find pleasure 
in watching them and learning about them. They will 
all teach him or her some lesson, and in admiring the 
beauties of creation they will learn to revere the Creator 
who has filled the world with such variety and beauty. 
