as to occupy a comparatively small space; and the same can be said of the modern fender-guards, which can be folded up when the room is unoccupied, and which form an effectual protection against the danger of ladies' dresses coming in contact with the fire.

Examples of such a screen, and two fans, are given on the right hand of the accompanying illustration.

On the left hand is shown one of the natural objects from which the fans, &c., might well have derived their origin. It is one of the antennæ-or horns, as they are popularly called

The end of this antenna is com

-of the common Cockchafer. posed of a number of flat plates, which work on a pivot exactly like the sticks of a fan, and, like those sticks, can be folded into a wonderfully small compass, or opened out into a fan-like shape.

BURIAL.

LAST Scene of all.

I do not think that it matters very much to one who has "shuffled off this mortal coil" what becomes of the coil in which he had been imprisoned. Whether the abandoned body be buried in the earth, or sunk in the sea, or devoured by wild beasts, or consumed by fire, signifies nothing to him, though it may signify much to his surviving friends.

As a rule, the animals, of whatever kind they may be, contrive to dispose of their mortal remains in some mysterious

manner, so that not a vestige of them is to be found. Take, for example, the domestic cat, and see how few bodies are found of cats which have died natural deaths.

For instance, there was my own cat "Pret," who lost his life from the bites of rats. He was blind, and so lamed that he could scarcely crawl. Yet, on the day of his death, he three times escaped from his comfortable bed in front of the fire, dragged himself through a hedge, down a steep bank, across a road, up another bank, through a crevice in a park fence, and curled himself up to die under a blackberry-bush.

Perhaps it was mistaken kindness on my part, and I should have acted better if I had left him to die in peace. But, though I carried him back three times, and though he was

quite unable to see, he contrived to slip out of the house, and to find the same spot for his last resting-place on this earth.

I have heard that some cats have been known to bury their young, and Dr. J. Brown tells a most touching story of a dog that committed her dead puppy to the river.

But as to Insects, until a few years ago, no one ever dreamed that the principle of burial could be found among them. What millions of insects die in every year, and how seldom is a dead insect found! Flies, gnats, and the smaller insects might escape observation, but the large moths, butterflies, beetles, dragon-flies, &c., are scarcely ever found dead.

In my own neighbourhood, for example, the Stag-beetle, nearly the largest and most conspicuous of British insects, swarms to an almost unpleasant degree, especially in the summer evenings.

Yet I have never found a dead Stag-beetle that had not been killed by violence. What becomes of the bodies of the countless millions of creatures that annually pass into their other world is a problem which at present no one seems to be able to solve.

STILL, there are instances where even insects are known to bury their dead, and I scarcely need say that they are to be found among the Ants.

The story is a very curious one, and is narrated at length in the Journal of the Linnean Society, vol. v. p. 217.

It happened that a lady found that her little boy was being stung by ants, and she at once killed them and threw their dead bodies away. After some time a number of ants came out of their nest, formed a procession as regularly organized as that of any undertaker's funeral, dug graves for each dead ant, laid the body in it, and covered it up again with earth.

They carried their organization to such an extent that they even had relays of bearers. But the strangest part of the story is that several worker ants would not assist in the funereal ceremonies. The soldiers at once set on them, killed them, and tumbled them all promiscuously into a common grave.

Such scenes were repeatedly witnessed by the lady, a Mrs. Hutton, who wrote the account while she was living in New South Wales.

USEFUL ARTS.

CHAPTER X.

WATER, AND MEANS OF PROCURING IT.

The Necessity of Water to Man.-Composition of the Human Body.-Natural and Artificial Distillation.-The Traveller's Tree.-Pitcher-plants and Monkeypots.-Stomach of the Camel, and its Analogy to the Honey-comb.-Dewdrops. Use of the Still at Sea.-Perspiration and its cooling Properties.— The Turkish Bath.-Perfume and Ether Spray.-Condenser of the Lowpressure Steam-engine.-The Dry and Wet Bulb Thermometer.-Ice produced in a red-hot Vessel.-Power of Water.-How Fountains are made.Modern System of Hydrants. - Hydraulic Mining.-The Victoria and Niagara Falls.-Artesian Wells.-The Norton Tube, &c., in Abyssinia.— The Water-ram and Spout-hole.

IT

T has often been remarked that man can live a comparatively long time without solid food, providing that he can only obtain water, of which the chief bulk of the human body is made. Dying by thirst is a horribly painful death, but, according to Mr. Mills, the ill-fated Australian traveller, "starvation on nardoo (an innutritious plant) is by no means unpleasant, but from the weakness one feels, and the utter inability to move one's self."

Those who have been shipwrecked, and unable to obtain fresh water, have always found that the tortures of thirst were infinitely harder to endure than those of hunger; and the reader will probably remember that those who perished in the Black Hole of Calcutta owed their deaths chiefly to thirst, their bodies being exhausted of moisture by the heat of the room, and no fresh supply attainable.

Civilisation especially shows itself in the way in which water is brought within the reach of every one, even in the most crowded of cities. The reader may probably call to mind the wonderful aqueducts of ancient Rome, the gigantic

remains of which still exist. Then, as to our own country, we are all practically acquainted with some water company, by which the water, more or less purified, is brought into our houses, and can be obtained by the mere turning of a tap.

Yet all this ingenuity is but a following of natural prototypes, as will presently be seen; and even the familiar Watertank, as shown at the right hand of the illustration, has been anticipated by Nature.

On the left hand of the illustration there are three examples of natural water-tanks, two belonging to the vegetable, and one to the animal kingdom.

That on the extreme left, with a number of radiations, represents a portion of a Madagascar palm, popularly called the

TRAVELLER'S TREE. STOMACH OF CAMEL PITCHER-PLANT.

CISTERN.

Traveller's Tree. Having very large leaves, arranged in the manner there shown, the Traveller's Tree condenses the nightly dews, and allows them to trickle down into the hollows of the leaf-stems.

There the water remains, out of the reach of sunbeams or wind, and if a traveller happens to be thirsty, all he has to do is to pierce the base of one of these gigantic leaves, and out rushes a stream of the purest water, as is shown in the illustration.