encroaching upon one another's food supply (for it must always be borne in mind that leaves grow out of the air, not, as most people fancy, out of the ground), and so without the consequent necessity for dividing up into little separate narrow segments. Accordingly, this type of leaf is very common among all those plants which spring up beside the hedgerows in the same erect shrubby manner as the nettles.

Then, again, there is the flower of the nettle, which in most plants is so much the most conspicuous part of all. Yet in this particular plant it is so unobtrusive that most people never notice its existence in any way. That is because the nettle is wind-fertilized, and so does not need bright and attractive petals. Here are the flowering branches, a lot of little forked antlerlike spikes, sticking out at right angles from the stem, and half concealed by the leaves of the row above them. Like many other windfertilized flowers, the stamens and pistils are collected on different plants—a plan which absolutely insures cross-fertilization, without the aid of the insects. I pick one of the stamenbearing clusters, and can see that it is made up of small separate green blossoms, each with four tiny leaf-like petals, and with four stamens doubled up in the center. I touch the flowers with the tip of my pocket knife, and in a second the four stamens jump out elastically as if alive, and dust the white pollen all over my fingers. Why should they act like this? Such tricks are not uncommon in bee-fertilized flowers, because

they insure the pollen being shed only when a bee thrusts his head into the blossom; but what use can this device be to the wind-fertilized nettle? I think the object is somewhat after this fashion. If the pollen were shed during perfectly calm weather, it would simply fall upon the ground, without reaching the pistils of neighboring plants at all. But by having the stamens thus doubled up, with elastic stalks, it happens that even when ripe they do not open and shed the pollen unless upon the occurrence of some slight concussion. This concussion is given when the stems are waved about by the wind; and then the pollen is shaken out under circumstances which give it the best chance of reaching the pistil.

Finally, there is the question of fruit. In the fig and the mulberry the fruit is succulent, and depends for its dispersion upon birds and animals. In the nettle it takes the form of a tiny, seed-like, flattened nut. Why is this, again? One might as well ask, why are we not all Lord Chancellors or Presidents of the Royal Academy. Each plant and each animal makes the best of such talents as it has got, and gets on by their aid; but all have not the same talents. One survives by dint of its prickles; another by dint of its attractive flowers; a third by its sweet fruit; a fourth by its hard nut-shell. As regards stings, the nettle is one of the best protected plants; as regards flower and fruit, it is merely one of the ruck. Every plant can only take advantage of any stray chances it happens to

possess; and the same advantageous tendencies do not show themselves in all alike. It is said that once a certain American, hearing of the sums which Canova got for his handicraft, took his son to the great man's studio, and inquired how much he would ask to make the boy a sculptor. But there is no evidence to show that that aspiring youth ever produced an Aphrodite or a Discobolus.

WASHINGTON IRVING

URING the course of the revolution that changed the British colonies in America into the United States, there was born in the city of New York the first great writer of this new nation, Washington Irving. The parents of Irving had been in America but twenty years, the father being Scotch and the mother English, yet they sympathized so fully with the colonists that they spent much of their time and means in caring for the soldiers held as prisoners by the British.

The mother was unusually warm-hearted and charitable, but the father, though a kind and conscientious man, was very strict, especially in dealing with his children. He seemed to feel that nearly every kind of amusement that young people delighted in was sinful, and he held up before his children such sober ways of living that Washington at least came to think that everything pleasant was wicked. No amount of sternness, however, could keep the five boys of the family and their three sisters wholly out of mischief, nor hinder them from having many a harmless good time.

After spending two years in a primary school, Washington was sent when six years old to a school kept by a soldier who had fought in the

Revolution, a man who dealt most harshly with disorderly pupils. Though Washington was always breaking rules, he was so honest in admitting the wrong done that the teacher had a particular liking for him, and would call him by the envied title of "General." To bear this title, as well as the name of the foremost American of that time, and to have received a blessing from the great Washington himself, was honor enough for one boy.

Though it was not till several years later that he first went to the theater, yet when he was about ten he was fond of acting the part of some warrior knight of whom he had read, and would challenge one of his companions to a duel in the yard, where they would fight desperately with wooden swords. About this time, too, he came upon Robinson Crusoe and Sindbad the Sailor, and thus was awakened a great delight in books of travel and adventure. Most pleasing of all was The World Displayed, a series of volumes in which one could read of voyages and land journeys in the most distant parts of the world. How exciting it was to scan hastily the pages of these books under cover of his desk at school, or to read them in bed at night by the light of candles smuggled into his room! It is no wonder that he grew to wish with all his heart that he could go to sea, and that he haunted the wharves watching the out-going vessels.

When only fifteen years old, Washington finished his schooling. In later life he was always very sorry that he had not been sent to col