The Dwarf Trees of China.
In China, that land of curiosities, may be seen oaks, chestnuts, pines, and cedars growing in flowerpots, and fifty years old, but not twelve inches high! They take the young plant, cut off its tap-root, and place it in a basin of good soil kept well watered. Should it grow too rapidly, they dig down and shorten in several roots. Year by year the leaves grow smaller, and in course of time the trees become little dwarfs, and are made pets of like canaries and dogs.
What is the "Lake School"?
In reading about poets and poetry, you will sometimes find an allusion to the "Lake School." This was the term applied by a writer in the Edinburgh Review to Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge, because they resided in the lake district of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and because—though their works differed in many respects from each other—they sought for inspiration in the simplicity of Nature rather than in the study of other poets, or of the prevailing fashion.
The Cuckoo's Fag.
Tom Brown, as readers will remember, was in deep trouble at Rugby about the fagging system in vogue during his "school-days." Many things have happened since then, and amongst others a marked improvement in fagging. The cruelty and insolence and selfishness of it have disappeared, and the system itself will one day die out. As regards boys, so far so good. Among some feathered folk, however, fagging flourishes in full vigour; and so long as there are cuckoos so long will there be fags. Many birds are imposed upon, one of the commonest victims being the hedge-sparrow. For days a sparrow has been watched while it fed a hungry complaining intruder. It used to fly on the cuckoo's back and then, standing on its head and leaning downwards, give it a caterpillar. The tit-bit having been greedily snatched and devoured, the cuckoo would peck fiercely at its tiny attendant—bidding it, as it were, fetch more food and not be long about it. Wordsworth tells us in a famous line that "the child is father of the man," and no apter illustration of this truth could be found than the cuckoo. Let us trace his early life history, and to begin with, peep into, say, a wagtail's nest. It contains a few eggs all seemingly alike. In due time they are hatched, and you at once notice that one of the baby birds is quite different from the rest. It is blind, naked, yellowish, and ugly, and ere long will prove itself a monster. How did it come to be born there? Well, you must know that it is a young cuckoo. Now, its mother has several bad habits.
the cuckoo's fag. (See [p. 52.])
For instance, she does not make a nest, but lays her egg on the ground, and then places it in a nest where there are others like the one she has laid. She is cunning, you see, as well as lazy and cruel; for she has, like a thief in the night, introduced into an innocent home a real tyrant. The young cuckoo soon reveals its true character. It begins by edging the wee wagtails to the side of the nest and then turning them out one by one. Of course the little things thus thrown over fall to the ground and die, but even if some kind person were to restore them to their home, they would be again bundled out in the same brutal fashion. Having got rid of the children of the rightful owners of the nest the ruthless sneak speedily cries for food; and the parents of the ejected birds actually tend this glutton with the greatest diligence. The young cuckoo is ever gaping for food, and for weeks the poor foster-parents are kept hard at work to supply its hunger. Why do they do so? Probably because they regard it as one of their own offspring, though they may have a sort of instinctive notion that there's something wrong; and so the weary round of fagging goes on until the cuckoo takes itself off to start life on its own account. So greedy, lazy, and thoroughly selfish, however, is this bird that after it has outgrown its nest, and is quite able to provide for itself, it will still look to its industrious comrades for its meals.