aphides are cleared off by the family of one
small ladybird. It should be high treason to
kill a ladybird in a flower-garden. The French
knew also the value of this insect before they
found out the uses of the birds, and in some
parts of the country their gardeners will take
pains to put ladybirds on green-house plants
that they particularly cherish. So you see,
Dick—"

The dear fellow was off like a schoolboy after
a white butterfly. With a good deal of puffing
he caught it neatly under his wide-awake, and
killed it on the spot.

"Well," I said, "it's worse than bird-murder
to kill an innocent creature like that."

"Innocent! How many fat devouring cater
pillars is a creature like that able to fill my
garden with, when she sows two crops in a year!
It's so much meat lost to the sparrows, but
there is plenty left for them. How cleverly
those little birds pick over a tree! No trouble
to them to stoop, no difficulty of reaching.
Now they are down at the root, now they are
up on the tree-top, now they are searching with
their bright little eyes far in among the branches.
You can't buy such hand-picking. And they
nip mischief in the bud yes, you will say, and
the bud with it——"

"No, I won't, Robin. I won't say anything
until I see my lunch."

"Well, come along then; but if you do see a
little bird breaking your fruit-buds to get at
the insects, don't be too sure that it's all
mischief. He wants that which hurts the bud, and
if the bud were not broken it would, probably,
fall fruitless, while being found infested and
picked off at once, the tree gets time to throw
out more healthy blossom. I won't deny that a
bullfinch or a titmouse may do an ounce of
mischief as against its pound of good. But, depend
upon it, what is said of the sparrow is true
generally of all these little fellows—that if he
eats a bushel of corn in a year, he gives a
quarter in exchange for it. One thing before
we go in, Dick. I should very much like you
to see a frog feeding. If you'd lie down with
me in this trench under the hedge, so that we
should be quite unobserved, you'd see the frogs
hunting the insects, and might even be so for
tunate as to see the blind-worm eat a slug."

"Not now; not now."

"Well, you are right. The best time is
after dark. We will come out after dinner—
and, dear me, it wants but half an hour of
dinner-time—we'll come out after dinner, Dick,
with a bull's-eye lantern. All the slugs and
grubs come up then, and the moths are about,
and we shall see how the toad shambles after
them and eats them up."

"It's almost dinner-time, Robin, as you say.
I had a presentiment when I came here that I
should have to lunch on frogs and toads, and I
have done so. But now let us dine."

As we went out of the walled garden, and
Robin locked the door, he wished me to observe
that he chose to wall in his preserves, in order that
he might keep up a more exact balance of life
in favour of the fruits and flowers; but if one
were only just to one's small friends, and got
rid of the mean spirit of grudge, against boys
as well as against birds, there was no reason
why the whole land should not abound with
fruit and flower. Hundreds, thousands of
miles of highway and railway line might be
planted, like many a continental road, with
hardy fruit trees. " And it was preposterous,"
he said, " that the whole country should go
without the wealth and comfort of a great
annual fruit harvest, in order that boys—who
would after all also be so far fed by what
they took—should not have the opportunity of
knocking a few bushels down from the trees,
or pocketing the windfalls."

To which my only reply was, that I did not
myself object to abundance of food, and that I
heard the dinner-bell.

COMPETITION WALLAHS.

THE neat little statements I have forwarded
as to my age, health, and morals, have satisfied
that Board of Commissioners with whom I have
become familiar by reason of the correspondence
I have had the honour to hold with them, and
whom I have come to regard with quite a filial
reverence; and I am now on my way to be
examined at Boilington House as a candidate for
the C—l S—e of H—r M—y in I—a
(obvious reasons preventing being more explicit).
In common with all other sensible people, I
disapprove of the competitive system, but that is no
reason why I should not profit by it if possible.
I enter the court-yard, and straightway find
myself among many wallahs of various degrees
and aspects. There are anxious wallahs, swell
wallahs, seedy wallahs, confident wallahs, de
sponding wallahs, careless wallahs, and many
other species of wallahs. These are prowling
about singly or in couples, waiting for the dread
hour to strike when they must enter on their
highly unpleasant ordeal. Some hold books and
bits of paper scrawled all over, out of which they
are cramming up to the last moment. These are
the anxious wallahs. Ever and anon they dive
deep into their books or notes, and on emerging
again are seen to mutter to themselves, and
smile with satisfaction as they fix a date or
conjugation in their already overloaded brains,
whence it is pretty sure to slip and be missing
when wanted. The swell wallahs stand about
iti elegant postures, tapping the ground with
their canes, and mentally criticising the peg
tops of other wallahs with an occasional glance
of approval at their own. These wallahs are
above cramming. The seedy wallahs (of whom
I am sorry to see so large a proportion) strike
defiant attitudes, and endeavour to seem at their
ease: an attempt in which they signally fail. The
confident wallahs—whose name is anything but
Legion—wear a most aggravatingly satisfied
and well-crammed look, and I, not being at all
confident or well crammed, immediately hate
them all. The desponding wallahs look doleful