CETUS, NOT CYGNUS.
One of my sharp eyed chicks, S.E.S., of Canandaigua, sends word that the star Mira, of which I told you last month, is in the star-group Cetus (the Whale), not in Cygnus (the Swan). S.E.S. is right, I find, and I'm much obliged to her.
PRSVRYPRFCTMN VRKPTHSPRCPTSTN.
Deacon Green says that these letters were found on a wall in a church in Wales, painted, like a text, above an inscription of the ten commandments.
Some of you may have seen it before, he thinks; but, if not, it will be good fun for you to find out what it means. He adds that there is but one letter of the alphabet wanting, to make sense; this is used over and over, and, if you put it into the right places, the text will turn into a rhymed couplet.
A REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES.
I have a message from a bird on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina.
"Here," says my friend, "I lately found a remedy for hard times. Looking for food one day, I came close to the home of a silk-spider who was about to make a new web. Now, what do you think I saw him doing? Why, he was eating up the old web, so as to turn it into thread again, and use it a second time! Another curious thing that I found out about this economical old fellow is that, although he has a great many eyes, he can see only just well enough to tell light from darkness."