THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,-

The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer-wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare;

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl:

Wrecked is the ship of pearl;

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed, -

Its irised1 ceiling rent, its sunless crypt 2 unsealed!

1 'rised, tinged with rainbow hues.

2 crypt, cell.

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil:

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new;

Stole with soft step its shining archway through;

Built up its idle door;

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no

more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap folorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that

sings:

"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul!

As the swift seasons roll;

Leave thy low-vaulted past;

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!"

O. W. HOLMES.

96. THE SCAVENGERS OF THE SEA.

ǎl'i-ment, nourishment.

in-haled', breathed in.

scav'en-ger, one who cleanses from strănd, shore, beach.

[filth.

1. IF a boy, a cod-fish, and a crab, were placed in seawater and covered by it, the boy would be drowned, the

fish and the crab would be safe. If on the contrary, all were placed on the strand, the fish would die, while the boy and the crab would be uninjured. Hence it appears that the crab can live where the boy cannot live; and that it can also live where the fish would perish. Let us see how this happens.

2. You and I breathe by means of lungs, which are in that part of the body called the chest. Every breath we draw fills the chest with air, and this acts upon the blood in the lungs; this air is driven out of the chest, fresh air is inhaled, and thus the act of breathing goes on. The fish, on the contrary, does not breathe by lungs, but by gills, and they cannot act except when the water is flowing through them.

3. We die if deprived of air; the fish dies if deprived of water in which air is contained, because it is by means of the water that it gets the air necessary for its existence. The breathing organs of the crab are quite different; so long as they are moist the crab can breathe. It has gills, but these do not require a current of water to pass through them, like those of a fish; they are wetted when the tide comes in, and this keeps them moist while the crabs are running on the sand at low-water.

4. When you take a crab in your hand it feels hard, because it is covered with a hard crust or shell. Now, suppose a little crab has got this hard covering over its body, how is it ever to grow any bigger? A snail can add a piece to its shell, and thus make its house larger when it wishes to do so. A mussel or an oyster can also make its shell larger by adding to it; but what is the crab to do? How is it to get out of the shell, if that be needful? and where or how is it to get a larger one? I will tell you

how. The shell bursts, the crab leaves it; and, as it is now quite unprotected, it keeps out of the way of danger until its new shell is completely formed. Thus the crab, as it grows larger, is supplied from time to time with a new covering.

5. We will now talk of another matter. Suppose that a boy should fall down in the street, and a loaded cart pass over one of his legs, crushing the bone to pieces, what would be done to him? The surgeon would cut off his leg, and he would have to be content with a wooden one. Suppose now that you were throwing a stone into the tide, and that it fell on the leg of a crab and crushed it to pieces, what would be done for the crab? No surgeon could get a wooden leg made for him. The crab is, however, quite independent of such assistance; he would fling off the broken leg at the joint above the broken part, and a new leg would grow, and in time become as large and as useful in every respect as the one that was there at first.

6. You know many dead bodies of various kinds are thrown into the sea; many are carried into it by rivers; many animals die there. If all those bodies were allowed to decay, and each day added to their number, the sea would become unfit for any creature to live in, and it would give out a stench that would kill those that lived on the neighboring land. To prevent such a result, there are multitudes of animals that feed on dead and decaying bodies, and find their best aliment in what would otherwise become injurious. The common shore crab is one of these scavengers of the sea.

PATTERSON.

97.

THE SPIDER AND ITS HOME.

am-a-teur', one devoted to a pursuit

from taste.

for.

an-tiç'i-pât-ed, foreseen and provided per-tur-ba'tion, agitation.

a'qua-for'tis, nitric acid.

ar'ti-san, worker, artificer. her-met'i-cal-ly, very closely.

im-pon'der-a-ble, without sensible weight.

in-cu-ba'tion, the act of sitting ou eggs.

in-spi-ra'tion, elevated emotion.
mo'bile, dexterous.

sanct'ú-a-ry, consecrated spot.

trans-pires', happens.

ten'ta-cles, projecting feelers.

ves'ti-bule, antechamber.

vir-tu-o'si [-se], great artists.
vis'cous, adhesive.

woof, texture of threads.

1. WHEN a spider has produced a sufficient quantity of thread to undertake a web, it glides from an elevated point, and unwinds its skein. There it remains suspended, and afterwards reascending to its starting-point by the assistance of its tiny cordage, moves towards another point; and continues to trace in this manner a series of radii all diverging from the same center. The skein stretched, it is busied next in weaving the woof by crossing the thread. Running from radius to radius, it touches each with its tentacles, which fasten to it the circular border. The whole is not a compact tissue, but a veritable network, so proportioned that all the meshes of the circle are invariably of the same size.

2. This web, woven out of itself, living and vibrating, is much more than an instrument: it is a part of its being. Itself of a circular form, the spider seems to expand within this circle, and prolong the filaments of its nerves to the radiating threads which it weaves. In the center of its web it has its greatest force for attack or defence. Out of that center the spider is timid; a fly will make it recoil.