[Illustration]

Besides all this, trees of this kind, planted in groups, cast a shade which keeps the ground moist, so that other fruit-trees can live beneath them.

When the tree is about one hundred years old, it ceases to bear fruit, and is cut down for timber; but in its long life it has made its owner rich and a great many people comfortable.

The paragram which told me all this said, further, that this tree is the date-palm, and is called “The Joy of the Desert.”  Well may it be so called, I should think; though once I heard some of the children of the red school-house say they hated “dates.”  Perhaps they meant “dates” of some other kind.

BABIES IN BOOTS.

Where do you suppose Tartar mothers carry their little children?

Not on their shoulders, nor on their hips, nor in their arms, nor at their backs, nor on their heads.

Well, I’m told they carry them in their boots!  These are made of cloth, and each is large enough to hold a child five years old!

ROOK COURTS AND BLACKBIRD POWWOWS.

DEAR JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT:  In England, where I come from, I have seen meetings of vast numbers of birds, though never as many of such different kinds as those named by Z.R.B. in the letter which you gave us in July.  Sometimes, a great number of rooks gather in a ring, and in the center of it is one lonely, dejected-looking rook, who holds his head down in silence.  The other rooks seem to hold a consultation, chattering and cawing back and forth, sometimes one alone and sometimes all together, until they seem to decide what to do.

    Then three or four old, solemn-looking rooks fly upon the lonely one
    and put him to death, as if he had been found guilty of some
    dreadful crime.

In this country, during spring, the blackbirds meet almost daily in the tops of high trees, especially elms and locusts, and there they chatter by the hour.  Sometimes a few will fly off, angrily, with quick, sharp notes, to some tree a little way off.  After a while, two or three more birds will join them from the large body.  Then, perhaps, some of them will go back as “peace commissioners,” and after a few more flights back and forth, and endless chatter, the little party may return to the main body; or, increasing in number, may form a second crowd as noisy as the first.

    No doubt you have heard and seen many such powwows, dear Jack.  Long
    may you live to watch the birds and repeat to us their wisdom! 
    Truly your friend,

    C.B.M.

AN INTERVAL NOT ON THE PROGRAMME.

I’m told that at Pompeii, Italy, in the year 79, a play was being acted in one of the theaters, when a storm of cinders fell, buried the whole city, and, of course, put a stop to the play, which has never been completed.  A few months ago, however, an operatic manager named Languri made up his mind to have a new theater just where the old one stood; so, he printed in the Italian newspapers a notice that ran something like this: