"But we can give them their chances," returned Mr. Rey. "Now look at this one. There are two sets of wings. One outside and one inside like grasshoppers, but much shorter. Here are two delicate feelers, or antennæ, bent backward, and two at the end of the body. I suppose those are for the purpose of discovering any danger that might approach them from behind while they are busy at digging. The jaws are toothed and horny, and so, all in all, we may put Sir Cricket down in the same order in which are the katydid, grasshopper, field and house cricket, cockroach, earwig and so on, which is the order Orthoptera. Now come and show me where you found them."
Boy Will led the way where stood his half-built snow-man, and Mr. Rey with a stick felt about in the chamber for the opening to another cavity to the lodge.
"Ah, here it is—a warmer and a better one than the other because it is deeper," and he slipped the two objects in and stopped the doorway with earth and snow.
"Well, I declare!" said Mr. Mole Cricket from under his horny skin, "What do you think of that?"
"Why," said his wife, "they've put us in the cavern where we should have been in the first place. What a mistake it was to go to sleep in the nursery! Now we shall be quite safe until spring."
"Well, well, true enough!" returned Sir Mole Cricket. And they both fell asleep again.
SNOW BIRDS.
This poem, by Louis Honoré Frechette, the laureate of Canada, is very fine in the original, and holds the same position in French-Canadian literature that Bryant's "Lines to a Waterfowl" occupies in American classics. It is one of the poems that won for its author the crown of the French academy and the Grand Prix Monthyon of 2,000 livres.
When the rude Equinox, with his cold train