350 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
the insects, and so forth-”... .Next morning he brought 
a lot of sheets written over with the queerest sort of lingo, 
which we have a mind to print just as he left it. We 
don’t exactly know what “head ” to give it, but we sus¬ 
pect he fell asleep when he got into that, big chair, so we 
will call it 
A VISION—AN INSECT CONCERT. 
“ Oh my sakes alive! what a time I had in that chair of 
yours. I sat down and was just trying to get my thoughts 
in order, when I thought the door opened very quietly, 
and the queerest looking little being you ever saw' cau¬ 
tiously stepped into the sanctum. He was about three 
feet high, with a big hump on his back ; he had a crooked 
nose, shining black eyes full of mischief, and a mouth 
that looked as if he never did anything but smile with it. 
His coat was striped with red and blue, and his panta¬ 
loons were of a bright green. On his head was a queer 
shaped hat, that looked like a night cap coming up to a 
point on the top, with a large red tassel hanging from it. 
He made a low bow, and without waiting for any ques¬ 
tions thus introduced himself: ‘ I’m singing master to the 
birds, bugs, and frogs,’ said he , 1 and I came to invite you 
to attend cur entertainment this evening if you’re not too 
busy. The birds say the Agriculturist is their particular 
friend, and the grasshopper and the horned frog whose 
picture was published in it, have arranged with their 
cousins that all will join in a concert for the Editor’s ben¬ 
efit.’ 
The invitation was so cordial and polite that I at once 
answered, ‘With the greatest pleasure, I am Editor-in- 
chief to-night.’ Before I knew what w'as coming, the lit¬ 
tle man flourished a lily stalk he held in his hand, and 
“ quick as wink ” I found him and myself reduced to a 
size less than your little finger ; and at the same time the 
wonderful singing master gave a shrill whistle like the 
chirp of a cricket, and a team of six large grasshoppers, 
harnessed to a chariot made of the polished shell of a 
walnut, with cushions of cat-tail down, and ornamented 
with gold, emerald, and diamond dust, sprang through the 
window on to the table. “Jump in,” said our friend, and 
taking his seat beside me, he chirruped to the team, and 
waved his lily stalk, and away we sprang. The night was 
quite dark, but an escort of fire flies with their lamps 
showed the way plainly. On we flew, the grasshoppers 
skimming along as swift as swallow's, over field and wood 
and stream, until we were brought to a plain bordered on 
three sides by a forest, with a small lake on the open side. 
On the stump of a large white oak, with a beautiful moss 
carpeting, seats were prepared, made of curiously carved 
acorns, and all around in the plain and woods, and on 
the surface of the lake, by the light of millions of fire flies 
and glow worms, I could see the immense company as¬ 
sembled for the concert. There were the robin and his 
mate, the mocking bird, thrush, jay, the solemn owl and 
the lively wren, the oriole and the sparrow, in short all 
the birds with a voice were there. Cicadas, crickets, 
bees and beetles, wasps, hornets and musquitos, all in 
their holiday suits, filled the grass and shrubs on the plain, 
and on the edge of the lake perched among the lily leaves, 
or squatting on the shore, were frogs, young and old, 
large and small, an innumerable multitude. For once, 
they all seemed at peace. The mosquitoes kept their lan¬ 
cets cased, and the bees and hornets their daggers in their 
sheaths. The wren forgot to tease the cuckoo, and t.he 
jay did not molest the owl. I was too much astonished to 
say a word, even to acknowledge their compliment when 
in obedience to a signal from the master, the whole com¬ 
pany made a profound salutation. Then with another 
wave of the lily stalk, the concert commenced with a 
piece by the mosquitoes, and a chorus with each verse by 
the frogs. The tune was very musical, like the sound of 
ten thousand little French horns, and when the frogs 
struck up in the chorus, it was equal to a full band. The 
song I could not understand, as it was in the insect lan¬ 
guage, but it sounded like this : 
1 Ze e-e-ing, ze-e-e-e-ing—ze-e-e-e-ing, kee boom, spleet, 
chung kee wung, 
Killy, boong k-e-e-ing—ke-e-e-e-e-ing—kee-e-e-e-ing, 
kitteryi, 
Chorus— Ker chunk checng lunk che laly bung, 
Speep, doon deem bingerum di.... ’ 
At the close there was great applause, the insects clapped 
their wings, the birds cheered loudly, even the solemn 
owl exclaimed goo-oo-oo-oo-ood, goo-oo-oo-ood, while 
the jay screamed with happy laughter. Order having 
been restored, there was a tambourine performance by the 
beetles, accompanied by the castanets of the borers, and 
the base drum of the partridge, while the whippoorwill 
played his fife ; and so they went on with one perform¬ 
ance after another, chimes by the crickets and cicadas, 
duets by the katy-dids, songs by the birds, and repeated 
choruses by the frogs, until, at a late hour, the master an¬ 
nounced that a grand chorus by all the performers would 
close the entertainment. Then what warbling, trilling, 
humming, booming, and rattling. I was too spell bound 
to move. It swelled and died away, and rose and fell, as 
if a hundred organs were giving a grand voluntary in 
unison. Just as the last part of this was being sung, 
crash ! bang ! went a gun from the neighboring thicket, 
and in an instant-1 awoke with a mosquito buzzing 
at each ear, a tree-toad and a katy-did singing a merry 
song just under the window, and the lamp extinguished 
by the wind which had slammed the shutters and caused 
the bang that awoke me.” 
[Well, was not that a queer performance? Shall we 
ever give up our chair to him again. What say you, boys 
and girls ? But let us have his whole report; he has got 
awake now. Here’s the rest of what he brought us next 
morning.—E d.] 
“ The dream gave me so much pleasure that I could 
notfind it in my heart to kill the mosquitoes—particularly 
as it was so dark I could not catch them. It set me think¬ 
ing 
WHY THE BIRDS SING? 
Do they really have a language, in which they can con¬ 
verse with each other? And when the robin pours out his 
sweet notes from the top of some tall poplar in which his 
mate is brooding over the nest, is he telling her of his 
love? The poets give us this idea, and nobody can say 
certainly that it is not so. One thing seems evident, the 
birds sing most when pleasant weather and plenty of food 
make them happy ; they do it as the natural way of ex¬ 
pressing their feelings ; it is therefore a kind of language, 
though there may not be any words, just as when you 
laugh or cry, it expresses your feelings as well or better 
than if you should say ‘ I am pleased,’ or ‘ I am sad.’ 
It is then, after all, quite true when we say the birds 
praise God with their songs, for it. is He that gives them 
the happiness they try to express. We should not like to 
kill His choristers." 
THE WELL CHOSEN NESTING PLACE. 
One of the friends of the Girls and Boys, Mr. J. H. 
Mifflin, Lancaster Co., Pa., sends the following interest¬ 
ing instance of the good judgment shown by birds in the 
selection of places for their nests. He writes : “ Last 
Winter, as I passed by the side of the garden, I noticed on 
the ground an oil-can, such as is used to fill lamps; it 
was without a top, but too good, I thought, to be thrown 
away; so I hung it as you see below, upon the pales of 
the fence, thinking it might, some day, come into use— 
and so it did, but not exactly as I had expected. During 
the Spring the boys saw a blue-bird fly out of it, and peep¬ 
ing in, they discovered a nest containing five little eggs. 
Whether they looked in too often, and the blue-bird de¬ 
serted when her retreat was discovered, or whether the 
saucy and courageous little wrens drove her out from so 
snug a shelter, I can not say, but it is now tenanted by a 
pair of the latter birds, and I like them better than their 
prettier plumaged predecessors, they are so sprightly and 
such incessant warblers near the house. But what an ad¬ 
mirable house that oil-can makes for them ! its small door 
can not admit much rain, if it blew never so hard or so 
horizontally-and then the spout is so nicely suited for 
drainage and ventilation— really if the little architect had 
studied the subject over your shoulder in the Agricultur¬ 
ist, he could not have done better.” 
ABOUT FACES. 
Have you ever thought how wonderful it is that among 
the millions of people on the earth, no two persons have 
faces exactly alike. There are instances where men very 
nearly resemble each other, so much so, that one not very 
well acquainted with them might easily mistake one for 
the other, but there are differences in them which can be 
seen by close inspection, and their intimate friends al¬ 
ways distinguish such persons from each other. And yet 
all the features by which countenances are made to differ, 
are contained on a surface of scarcely nine inches each 
way, and what makes the matter more wonderful is, the 
features are in the same place in each countenance ; the 
forehead, nose, eyes, cheeks, mouth and chin, always be¬ 
ing found in their proper position in the face. And 
stranger still, they all, however different, are constructed 
on the same general plan, and present some general re¬ 
semblance. What confusion it would make if our coun¬ 
tenances were all exactly similar, like so many bricks 
shaped in the same mold. Singular mistakes have oc¬ 
curred from the strong resemblance of different persons. 
There is a story of two twin brothers illustrating this. 
They both attended the same school, and the teacher, who 
was somewhat near-sighted, could not for a long time dis¬ 
tinguish one from the other. Sometimes James would be 
unprepared for recitation, and when the class was called, 
John would boldly step up in James’s place and answer 
his questions, while James would slyly slip into John’s 
seat until the recitation was past. This was wrong, but 
it shows what difficulties might occur if we did not each 
have an appearance peculiar to ourselves. The Creator 
foresaw these difficulties, and has wisely prevented them. 
His works are all harmonious, and all wonderful. 
firassslmoSIiter irstlii tSae iLittle Girls. 
REPORTED BY COUSIN MARY. 
Dear Mr. Editor— I send you another of Grandmoth 
er’s talks, which we all listened to with much interest, 
and which I think all my cousins ought to pay attention 
to. I have the dear old lady’s words pretty nearly. 1 
should like very much to give her pleasant manner, as 
she sat knitting, and occasionally laying down her work 
when she became particularly engaged, but as I can not, 
what she said must suffice. Mary. 
I hope, my girls, you will not think I am scolding you, 
when I speak of things in which I would like to see you 
improve. We all love ourselves so well that it is some¬ 
times difficult to see our own faults, and when a friend 
kindly points them out to us, we should take it as a real 
favor. If you were just going into a room full of compa¬ 
ny with a stain on your face or clothes, of which you did 
not know, I am sure you would feel thankful to any per¬ 
son that would tell you of it, and save you the mortifica¬ 
tion of discovering it when all were looking at you. The 
great world is like a room full of company, and I have 
been in it long enough to find out that somehow or other 
people seem to have wonderful sharp eyes in finding out, 
our faults. A bad spot on the face would be very morli 
fying, but a blemish on the character, or a fault in the dis¬ 
position, will do us much more harm. Water will soon 
make our faces look as clean as ever, but a bad fault is 
like the sticky tar I got on my muff last winter; it is not 
so easy to get it out. So you will not think hard of me I 
am sure if I sometimes give you some real hard rubs, just 
as I did formerly to my mahogany sideboard to polish it up 
and make it shine, for I want you all to be as bright and 
nice as the best furniture ; and children are, after all. the 
best furniture in the house, that is, when they are proper¬ 
ly attended to. 
Some of my girls are troubled with an affection that 
makes them act very queerly at times. I saw one of them 
in this condition the other afternoon. She was on a 
pleasure excursion with her father and mother and a few 
friends. We were sailing on a steamboat, and everything 
looked so pleasant that all but Fannie enjoyed it exceed¬ 
ingly. She couldn’t be still a moment. First she wanted 
to sit in her father’s lap. He took her, but in a minute 
she ran to her mother and wanted to sit in a chair beside 
her. A chair was brought, but in a little while she wanted 
to go into the eabin and get a drink, she was so thirsty. 
Then she must have a piece of cake out of the basket 
which had been put in the store-room of the boat; w hen 
this was half eaten, she wanted her father to w'alkup and 
down the deck with her, and before they had gone back 
and forth half a dozen times, she came and w'anted 
Grandmother to tell her a story ; and so she went from 
one thing to another, until she became so troublesome 
