What do the pansies think, mamma,
When they first come in the spring?
Do they remember the robins,
And the songs they used to sing?
When the butterflies come again,
I wonder if they will say,
"We are ever so glad to see you,
And won't you sit down and stay?"
Will the pansies tell the butterflies
How the snow lay white and deep,
And how beneath it, safe and warm,
They had such a pleasant sleep?
Will the butterflies tell the pansies
How they hid in their cradle bed,
And dreamed away the winter-time,
When people thought they were dead?
And will they talk of the weather,
Just as grown-up people do?
And wish the sun would always shine,
And the skies be always blue?
Speak of the lilies dressed in white,
And the daffodils dressed in gold,
And say that they think the tulips
Are exceedingly gay and bold?
I fancy the purple pansies are proud;
I fancy the yellow are gay.
Oh! I wish I could know just what they think;
I wish I could hear them say,
"Here comes our dear little Lucy,
The kind little girl in pink,
Who used to visit us every day—
And that's what we pansies think."
[HOW JELLY-FISH LIVE AND MOVE.]
BY SARAH COOPER.
When jelly-fish are seen lying in shapeless masses upon the beach, where they have been washed by the tide, their appearance is not attractive. If, however, we can watch them from the side of a boat, or from a long pier, as they dart through the water with their tentacles trailing after them, we shall soon learn to admire their graceful movements and their elegant colors. There is something very interesting too in these little inhabitants of the great deep. They are such soft and helpless little things, and yet they live and have their own good times if only the boisterous waves do not catch them and fling them too harshly against the rough shore.
Fig. 1.—Section of Jelly-Fish showing Tubes and Mouth.
Jelly-fish consist of a single bell-shaped mass of jelly, from the inner surface of which hangs the body of the animal, with the mouth in the centre. The mouth opens directly into the stomach, from which several hollow tubes (usually four) extend to a circular tube around the edge of the bell. In the jelly-fish, Fig. 1, a, the side next to us has been removed that we may see the tubes and the mouth hanging in the centre; b shows us the same viewed from below.
The eggs of jelly-fish are formed in large quantities in the tubes leading from the centre. In Fig. 1 you will see the enlarged cavities containing eggs. At certain seasons of the year great clusters of bright-colored eggs may be seen through the transparent flesh. A few jelly-fish are thought to produce young ones resembling themselves, without passing through the strange forms we noticed in studying hydroids.
Hydroids, about which I told you in Young People March 14, No. 124, you will remember, are abundant in all oceans. So are jelly-fish, and they are often found floating in large companies. Jelly-fish are propelled by alternately taking in and throwing out water under the bell. This gives them a jerking movement, which looks as if it were caused by breathing. They come to the surface chiefly when the water is quiet, and, as they like the warm sun, you will not see many of them at an early hour in the day. They are easily alarmed. If they meet with an obstacle in their course, or if they are touched by an enemy, the bell contracts, the tentacles are instantly drawn up, and the creature sinks in the water.