50 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
At the beginning our largest lishes were two 
broad, llat-sided ones (I am sorry that I can¬ 
not give any of the names) that soon became 
very tame, taking flies out of our fingers. 
They were wonderfully quick, but as they re¬ 
fused any other food, and as we did not want 
them to starve and die, we took them up to 
the lake, as the fly season waned, and set them 
free. Up to this time, although we had great¬ 
ly enjoyed the aquarium, it had been a very 
troublesome thing to keep clean. Every morn¬ 
ing we found a bluish scum on the surface, 
and daily skimmings and siphonings were nec¬ 
essary to keen it presentable, but with the de¬ 
parture of the two big fishes everything chang¬ 
ed, the water remaining clear and beautiful 
from day to day. 
We had grown fond of the friendly, hungry, 
little mud-turtle, but as the days grew colder 
he lost his appetite and seemed to want to 
hibernate, so we took him out to Washington 
Park and let him swim gaily out into a muddy 
lily-pond. 
The acquarium has now settled down to 
winter conditions. Over the bright clean sand 
in the bottom wave th’e graceful little water 
plants. In one corner is an arch built of bright 
stones and crystals and this spot is much en¬ 
joyed by the inhabitants. At the other end, 
nearest the window, a great Chinese lily is 
growing and blossoming. The family consists 
of a bull-head, a dozen tiny minnows, a dear, 
modest little stone-roller, a very aristocratic 
slim gray fish, named Frills, on account of his 
exquisite ruffled fins, and some gay gold-fish, 
Dandy, Sparkle, and Silvertop. The bull-head 
thinks that winter is the time for rest and 
spends most of his time lying on his side in the 
sand, under the edge of a stone, sound asleep, 
but the others are all very lively and tame, 
and beg for food very prettily, putting up 
their little noses whenever we approach. Their 
morning meal is of fine bread crumbs, which are 
greedily eaten by all but Frills, who, however, 
amuses himself by catching them and spitting 
them out again, whereupon they are devoured 
by the others. Frills will eat nothing but 
meat, which he prefers raw, and which he will 
take only while it is passing through the wa¬ 
ter. When it has settled on the bottom it has 
no further interest for him. The meat meal 
comes at noon, and is partaken of by all. We 
doubtless give them more food than they need, 
but it is so amusing to see them that we do it 
for our own pleasure. 
Our Angora kitten, Miss MufTet, likes to 
walk about on the edge of the aquarium. Sh'e 
watches the fishes with great interest and 
often takes a drink, but does no harm. Most 
of the fishes are afraid of her, but saucy little 
Sparkle sometimes keeps just under her nose 
and blows bubbles at her. 
Once a week we siphon off the dirt that col¬ 
lects on top of the sand, and fill the aquarium 
with fresh water. This small amount of work 
keeps it in perfect condition, and we are all 
agreed that it is a great source of pleasure in 
the house. E. G. P. 
RED SQUIRRELS. 
My earliest remembrance of red squirrels is 
of a visit at the house of an aunt where a 
large hickory tree was not far from the nurs¬ 
ery windows. My cousin and I could not have 
been more than six years old and we were fas¬ 
cinated by the red squirrels which haunted 
this tree, and longed to have them come near¬ 
er to us. We planned to tame them, and pa¬ 
tiently gathered nuts and acorns and made a 
clothes line of them from the tree to a trellis 
which reached to the room of the piazza below 
the nursery windows. Many a time our line of 
nuts was scattered by the older children at 
play, or the gardner at work on the lawn, but 
we replaced it every time, and at last had the 
satisfaction of seeing the squirrels come to the 
trellis, having eaten their way along our trail 
of nuts. 
Then we put nuts on the bars of the trellis, 
trying to make each one project a little over 
the edge so that it could be seen from below, 
and after a time the squirrels really climbed 
the trellis and came on the roof where we had 
an ample store of nuts for them. From roof to 
window sill was a short step in the training, 
and we had the pleasure of seeing the wild 
little creatures sit there and eat their nuts. 
They never took nuts from our hands and we 
never tried to touch them, and before the next 
nut season the tree had to be cut down and 
the squirrels disappeared. 
Red squirrels are by no means as friendly 
and companionable as grays, nor are they a3 
gentle. They are very active, very nervous, 
very quarrelsome, and, I am sorry to say, very 
destructive of bird’s eggs and nestlings. I 
