E. G. Koch.—The best thing for you to do is to go to Prospect Park Lake, Brooklyn, any pleasant Saturday afternoon, where you can witness the regatta, and learn full particulars concerning the yacht club.
W. B. A. S.—The loon is found in all the Northern States. It is a very awkward bird on land, but a graceful and rapid swimmer. It is a remarkable diver, and it is thought that no other feathered creature can dive so far beneath the surface or remain so long a time under water. A specimen was once found attached to the hook of a fisherman's set line in Seneca Lake, it having dived nearly one hundred feet to reach the bait. It feeds on lizards, fish, frogs, all kinds of aquatic insects, and the roots of fresh-water plants, usually swallowing its food under water. It is a very large bird, about three feet in length, and spreads its wings fully five feet. It builds its nest in marshes, near water, of rushes and grass, which it twists together in a huge heap on the ground, usually among tall reeds. The eggs, usually three in number, are a little over three inches long, and in color of a dull greenish ochre, with indistinct spots of dark umber, most numerous toward the broad end. During the winter this bird lives near the sea-shore, especially in the salt-marshes on the Long Island coast, and along the shores of the Chesapeake; but in the summer it goes as far north as Maine, and breeds there in great quantities.
Edith H.—The peculiar spots often found on lemons and oranges are only a natural appearance of the skin of certain varieties. Havana oranges and the best Floridas are more marked in this way than other kinds.
A. R. A.—Your Wiggles are remarkably pretty, but they came too late to be engraved.
A. U. Y.—Japanese wine-flowers can be obtained in New York at nearly every store where toys, novelties, and apparatus for parlor magic are sold. They are also called Surprises, or Japanese Curiosos.