BOTTLE IMPS.
Obtain from the toy-shop some small enamelled figures that are made partially hollow towards their lower part, place them in a glass jar filled quite full to the brim with water, and carefully close the jar by covering it tightly with a piece of parchment. Now, by alternately placing the hand upon the cover and lifting it off again, the figures are made to descend and ascend in the water. This is caused by the hollowness before mentioned, the cavities in the figures retaining a certain quantity of air, and imparting the requisite buoyancy to them. When the hand is pressed upon the parchment cover of the bottle the water rises, in consequence of the pressure, into the figures. The air so being compressed into less space, renders the imps less buoyant, and they fall; on the pressure being removed they rise again.
BROTHER JONATHAN.
This is a game of American origin, and consists in pitching a copper or some other convenient object at the spaces of a diagram arranged and numbered, as shown in the accompanying plan. The larger spaces should bear the smaller numbers, and the smaller spaces the larger numbers. A mark from which the pitch is to be made must be arranged, and those pitches only count which are made into one or other of the compartments; pitches made upon the different lines are not counted. The number marked in the compartment pitched into counts towards game, which may be fixed at any number according to the pleasure of the players.
Brother Jonathan.
Crack Loo is a somewhat similar game, and it consists in pitching on a boarded floor with the object of pitching on one or other of the cracks separating the boards.
CAMERA (MINIATURE).
The materials required to make this toy are a small pill-box, a small piece of broken looking-glass about half an inch square, and a little piece of beeswax. Bore a small hole in the centre of the lid of the pill-box, and another hole in the side of the box; then, by means of the beeswax, stick the bit of looking-glass across the bottom of the box, at an angle of forty-five degrees. By looking now through one of the holes in the box the reflection of objects passing behind will be seen. In making a miniature camera it is not necessary that the materials used should be so small as those here set forth, but even of such materials as those mentioned an effective little toy may be easily constructed, and more ambitious cameras are to be made on just the same principle.