Some Everyday Mistakes

Cnrreiit natural history is sometimes very amusing. Au observant country boy eau give yon inore reliable informa - tion in half an hour than many of the ■ writera who re accepted as authoi-ity. ! Two esaniplcs of the fallacies of the : latter have been going the roiuids. One ! was au article on the cricket, which ; was described as a very dainty iusect with a delicate appetite. There is in ; reality but oue that is more voracious, ' and that is the cockroaeh. The cricket has a robust taste for alruost auythrng, ; especially farinaeeons matter, aud it is ] very destructivo to clothing. A keeper had lier lace curtains eaten up, and the writer remembers once visiting in u house Where the walls had been ceiled and papered. The paper hung loose here aud ther-i, due to the crickets j that fuawed throuh to get at the paste that had been nsed by the paper haugers. j Another story was of the mar velona self control of a man who discovered j that a black snake had concealed itself j in the pocket of his coat, whieh Le had I thrown aside in the field aud donned again, very stupidly, without discovering the reptile. This of irself was surprisiug, as it is generally from four to five feet in length and and weighs several pounds. The black snake of the northern middle states is as harmless as the toad, and, moreover, is extremely cowardly. lts greatest fault is its destructiveuess of young birds - the broods of those species which nest in low shrubs or upon the ground. But a man inight carry one in each pocket and come to do harm, if his pockets were lai-ge enough aud if he did not have the inherent animositv of mankind toward reptiles.