A FLYING BATRACHIAN OF MALAISIA.

ALL the vertebrates have representatives that are endowed with the faculty of flight. This gift has not been refused to the bat any more than to the galeopitheci, or flying lemurs, and in various regions we find squirrels whose skin extends along the sides in wide folds, and forms a large parachute. The flying squirrels (Pteromys) are the most remarkable representatives of these aerial rodents, and among marsupials, the charming Belida, of the Austo-Malaisian region, are not the least graceful of the flying mammals.

It has been the privilege of all who have sailed in tropical waters to see flying fishes describing graceful parabolas over the water, and endeavoring to escape the bill of the bird or the teeth of the bonito. The reptiles have their flying dragons, and the batrachians include the Rhacophori among their number.

The celebrated English traveller, A. R. Wallace, has, in a remarkable work- a true vade mecum for every naturalist visiting Malaisia embodied the fruit of his researches and observations made during a stay of about eight years in the islands of Malaisia and New Guinea. During one of his trips to the island of Borneo he was enabled to procure one of those batrachians of the curious genus Rhacophorus, and he thus describes it:

"One of the most curious and interesting reptiles which I met with

in Borneo was a large tree frog, which was brought me by one of the Chinese workmen. He assured me that he had seen it come down, in a slanting direction, from a high tree, as if it flew. On examining it, I found the toes very long and fully webbed to their very extremity, so that when expanded they offered a surface much larger than the body. The fore legs were also bordered by a membrane, and the body was capable of considerable inflation. The back and limbs were of a very deep shining green color, the under surface and the inner toes yellow, while the webs were black, rayed with yellow. The body was about four inches in length, while the webs of each hind foot, when fully expanded, covered a surface of four square inches, and the webs of all the feet together about twelve square inches. As the extremities of the toes have dilated disks for adhesion, showing the creature to be a true tree frog, it is difficult to imagine that this immense membrane of the toes can be for the purpose of swimming only, and the account of the Chinaman, that it flew down from the tree, becomes more credible."

The naturalist Kuhl, who perished in Java, a victim to his devotion to science, assigns the following general characters to these toads, some of the forms of which he groups under the title of Rhacophorus:

Interdigital membranes long and extensible, folded longitudinally when the fingers are not extended; head short, tongue wide, and developed lengthwise, narrow in front, and forked, free behind; tympanum apparent; vomerian teeth situated between the wide-spaced posterior nares; the skin of the arm forming along the latter a crest-like expansion. While resembling tree toads in their general external characters, the Rhacophoti, in their internal organization, recall the frogs, among which many naturalists are inclined to class them.

We herewith give a figure of a large species, drawn by Mr. Clement, from a specimen in the Museum of Natural History of Paris. This species, which is known as R. rheinwardti, has a green back, speckled with black, and an orange-yellow belly, marked with black dots. Blue blotches are found upon the palms of the four limbs, between all the fingers except the first and second. The general form is well shown in the engraving. The eyes are protuberant, and the snout is rounded in front. Although the dorsal skin, as well as that of the upper surface of the limbs, is smooth, the belly is very granular, as is also the lower surface of the thighs; but the breast and throat are smooth. At the extremity of the very large and long fingers are observed spongy disks of considerable size. The hand has one peculiarity: its fingers are provided in the centre with a long, tubercular appendage. The general aspect of the rhacophori is like that of the large and beautiful tree toads of the Papua Islands, one species of which (Pelodryas cynea) is remarkable for its splendid azure color. Rheinwardt's Rhacophorus inhabits the Sunda Islands.

Exact data are wanting as to the habits of these curious amphibians. It is permissible to believe that, after the manner of the tree toad, they dwell in trees and bushes, hunt insects, and, in their gambols, make use of the singular parachutes that nature has given them. In the East Indies and their archipelagoes, and in Madagascar, other forms are met with that have the interdigital membranes more or less developed.

DWARF OF THE RED BOG; OR, LITTLE MARY'S MYSTERY.

In a lonesome part of Ireland stands a great dark mountain, blue as a wall of sapphire, and with a crest like an eagle's beak. Under it is a small stone cabin surrounded with a fringe of green. Wild, black bogland, lies beyond, skirted by a strip of deep red bog, which looks as warm in the sunshine as if it was a gold mine.

Little Mary, who lived in the cabin, had been so starved ever since she was born, that she had given up trying to grow. Her small face was as white as the blossom of the bog cotton, and her body was almost as thin as the slender stem from which it swings in the breeze. There were eight children in the cabin younger than Mary, and they all stood round a noggin of milk which Mary had just milked from the cow.

"Give me a tint for the baby," said the mother, "and carry the rest to poor old Bid at the back of the bog. She's sick, children, and the rest of us are on our feet."

The children left off gazing at the milk, and Mary ran off with the noggin as fast as she could without spilling it.

She had just got to the black bog where the red one joins it, when she saw a very strange figure squatting on the ground, a dwarf with his short arms thrown up as if to save himself from falling backward, and with a most peculiar expression on his countenance. A cry seemed to come from him, and putting down her noggin, Mary ran to his assistance; but when she came close to the figure she found it was nothing but a great lump of bog-wood that had been uncarted out of the bog. With a wild laugh, and a half-frightened glance over her shoulder, she picked up her noggin again and hurried on her way.

Bid's only son was miles off looking for work, and the bed-ridden creature was alone, except when angel messengers like Mary came and ministered to her.

"Mother says she's afeared it is the last time, Bid," said the child; "for the cow's going, and we'll all be on the road, maybe, before the month is out."

"The Lord forbid!" said the old woman, when she had moistened. her lips. May He send you the rent up out of the earth, or down out of the sky-you that have kept the neighbor out of the poor-house!" The dusk was darkening the purple mountain, and the moon scudding wild and bright through clouds and mists, when little Mary, flying like a gull, stopped, poised on her toe, and stood gazing once more at the dwarf-like figure squatting forlornly on the very edge of the red bog. This time there was no mistake about the matter. The stump of bogwood was gone, and the strange figure was throwing up his arms frantically to attract the little maiden's attention. A plover gave a weird cry at the same moment, and the dwarf cried out :

"Help me up! oh, help me up! The awkward fellows have left me in a soft place, and I am sinking!

Mary walked up on her tip-toes, and looked at the dwarf. His eyes were quite crooked with excitement in his flat face, and his short, stiff legs were stuck fast in the red bog.

"Get me over to the black bog, which is harder," he said, "and

then I shall be all right. I don't want to sink back into the earth again." Mary took hold of his short, out-stretched arms with both her little hands, and tugged as well as she was able. After several attempts she got him pulled out of the swampy ground, and trundled him over on the hard, black peat, where he lay panting for several minutes, and blinking his extraordinary eyes up at the moon.

"I hope you are more comfortable now, sir?" said Mary, with a courtesy.

"Perfectly comfortable. And now, my dear, put your hands in my pockets, and take out what you can find. It's only an encumbrance to me after all these centuries. And it will pay your rent. Did you ever

hear of gold?"

"No, sir," said Mary.

"Put your hands into my pockets, then," said the dwarf.

Mary did as she was bid, and pulled up one after another a quantity of beautiful shining yellow things, brooches, collars, and other curious ornaments of ancient Irish times, and she gathered them into the skirt of her petticoat.

"Now, run fast," said the dwarf, "for I want to go on looking at

the moon.

I haven't seen the face of a moon for I don't know how

many centuries. Often it shone on me when I was a giant instead of a dwarf, and had a crown of leaves on my head and singing birds flying all around me. Tell your father that the heroes who gave me these gold things to keep will never ask them back again from him. They pass me sometimes marching across the bogland at dead of night, lamenting for the woods that are gone; but they are all flashing in splendors now, and have no need of such trumpery as these. Your father can sell the gold and buy any number of pigs and cows."

Then the dwarf gave such an extraordinary yawn, and rolled his eyes so frightfully at the moon, that little Mary turned and fled without as much as saying "thank you." "thank you." When she reached home she emptied the gold ornaments into her father's lap, and told him her adventure exactly as it had happened to her.

"The child has gone mad with hunger," cried Mary's mother, clasping her hands. But the father put the gold things into a sack and did not fail to sell them instead of the cow.

When the whole family went in the morning to look for the goodnatured dwarf, they found nothing but a huge stump of bog-wood lying in a particularly awkward attitude on the edge of the red bog, just where it had been unearthed several days before. Where the dwarf's pockets had been there were deep, round holes. Somebody said that the stump had once been a tree in a mighty forest, and that the warriors of ancient Ireland often hung their golden collars and armlets on the branches of trees while they rested under the shade. Of course that does not quite clear up little Mary's mystery; but anybody can see the gold ornaments in the Royal Irish Academy.

ROSA MULHOLLAND.

WHEN Our Lord was upon the cross even His enemies declared Him King.-St. Francis de Sales.

THE LION AND THE MOUSE.

"WELL, here we have an animal roaring with pain, all tied up with ropes, and he is a lion! Why, who could have tied him up? I should be sorry to have that to do. Why, Father Luca, even you would not be able to manage that; would you, now?"

"The lion has been caught in a snare," answered the priest. "He was rushing after his prey, and did not see the ropes which the hunters had spread for him, till he ran into them, and found himself caught fast."

"A snare?" said Tino, thinking. "Oh, I know. I saw that surly old Girolamo, Papa's huntsman, setting a snare for hares. Then he hid himself, and set the dogs scouring about the field, till they put up a hare; and the silly thing ran bolt into the noose, and began screaming, with the string tight round its neck. But this lion is different," he

went on.

"Well, let me hear," said Father Luca, with a pleased look. "There are many differences, to be sure, between a hare and a lion; which of them are you thinking of, Tino?"

"The hare," said the little Prince, "got caught, because he was in great fear, and was running away from the dogs; but the lion was not afraid, I'm sure. Why, who ever saw a lion in a fright? Ha, ha, ha! What an odd look he would have! He would not be a lion at all."

"There are two ways of getting caught in a snare," answered Father Luca; "one is, from fear, like the hare; the other is, from a wish to get at something, like the mouse you told me of, that wanted the cheese, and so got into the trap. And, talking of mice, what is that small, dark spot on the rope, in front of the lion, that seems to be creeping up to him?”

"A mouse!" cried Tino, after he had looked well at it; "it really is a mouse. Why is the mouse not afraid of the lion ?"

"The fable tells us," said Father Luca, "that the lion, once upon a time, ranging through the forest, with his nose in the air, snuffing about for his prey, was nearly crushing a mouse to death with his huge paw. But the mouse squeaked, just in time."

"A squeak for his life," interrupted the Prince, who did not so much mind interrupting people while they were speaking. He did not mean to be rude, but was thoughtless, and used to having his own way.

But the priest took no notice. He thought it better to correct that fault in his pupil another time.

"So the lion looked down, and forbore to tread upon the poor little mouse. Some time after, the mouse heard this friendly lion roaring, and noosed in the snare, which he could not break, nor tear away, with all his strength. So the mouse ran, and got upon the rope, and began nibbling at it with his little sharp teeth, till he had nibbled it half through. Then the lion made a great effort, snapped the big rope, and bounded away into the forest, as free as before. Now, let us see what we can learn from this fable of the lion and the mouse.'

"I think I see two lessons," said Tino, after thinking a little while.