J. H. Knox.—March is considered the proper season.
Bessie C.—The best way to prevent your bird from eating its eggs is to put its food in the cage at night, so that when the breakfast hour arrives there will be something fresh and tempting to distract its attention. If it still persists in this troublesome habit, we fear there is no remedy for it.
C. S.—Your inquiry about coloring Easter-eggs came too late to be answered for this season, but you can practice now, so that by next Easter you will be able to color eggs "nicely." The best way is to purchase the coloring matter, as it comes in little packages already prepared, and with full directions for use. The way you propose would also be very pretty.
Winnie R.—Keyed musical instruments similar in form to the piano were in use several hundred years ago. The virginal, shaped like an old-fashioned square piano, was a favorite instrument at the time of Queen Elizabeth of England, and by some authorities is supposed to have been named in honor of the Virgin Queen, as she was called. The harpsichord, much in use during the last century, was shaped almost exactly like a modern grand piano. The honor of having invented the hammer which plays upon the strings of the piano now in use is claimed by several nations, but the credit is probably due to Italy, although the first pianos are said to have been made in Germany, probably in the city of Freyburg. The piano was first called the hammer-harpsichord, afterward by the Italian name forte-piano, as it could give both loud and soft tones, while the harpsichord produced only loud ones. The name was changed later to piano-forte. Pianos are first mentioned as being in use about the middle of the eighteenth century.
Idella G. S., Edward L. H., and some other young readers in the far South inquire what are the willow "pussies" which Northern children gathered with so much glee in the earliest days of spring. They are the blossoms of the common low willow which grows in great abundance at the North, and as they are the first signs that winter is passing away, are always heartily welcomed. The buds form in the autumn on the brown twigs, and with the first warm spring sun, long before anything green has started, they swell, and burst open the brown scaly covering, disclosing a soft, downy white ament, or blossom, resembling the toe of a white kitty. This resemblance is perhaps the reason why children call these early flowers "pussies."