You can see how nicely this arrangement enables him to hold on to the branches of trees, where he lives. All four of his feet are fixed in the same way. And, as if four such hands and feet were not enough, his long, slim tail is as good as another foot. He can curl it around a branch as a monkey can his, and hold on with it. Even when he walks on the ground-which he don't much like to do—he steadies himself with this useful tail.

It is more like

Every thing about this fellow is odd. His skin is not fastened tight to him, as it is to most animals. a loose bag, and he can swell it out into queer shapes, or rather into a shapeless mass, by filling it with air. And another oddity about the skin is, that by a peculiar arrangement of the colouring matter, he sometimes looks one colour, and sometimes another, according to the way the light strikes him. It is something like what you have seen in changeable silks.

Strange stories were told about this curious little fellow, in old times. It was really believed that he had no regular colour of his own, but that he took the colour of the thing he was near, being green among the leaves and brown on the ground. That error was caused, of course, by the changes of colour I spoke of.

Another error was the effect of his curious habit of blowing himself up like a bladder. It was said that he had no particular shape. In fact, he had no character of his own anyway-neither colour nor shape!

The wisest men of old times believed these stories, and it seems droll enough to read of it in serious, wise books. Even the name of the honest little fellow got to mean one who changes his opinions to suit anybody and has no fixed ideas of his own.

You see it has taken hundreds of years, and hundreds of men watching them, to find out about these curious little fellows; and you can learn it all in five minutes.

E suppose that few, if any, of our young friends ever saw a woman sitting at a wheel spinning cotton yarn. And yet for many ages this was the only way of spinning; and, indeed, this method is still somewhat common in some parts of the East; and it is said that the spindle and the distaff may still be seen in some of the remote districts of Scotland. By this

method a woman was able to spin only one thread at a time, but by the wonderfully swift and bright machinery now used in our Lancashire mills, it is said that one person can produce nearly two thousand threads at the same time. Of course clothing was very costly when the spinning wheel was the only way of spinning yarn. In those days poor people had very hard times. Their food was very coarse, and their clothing very scanty. Indeed, our young friends have good reason to thank God, not only that they live in England, but also that they live in the nineteenth century. Two hundred years ago the working people did not enjoy anything like so many blessings that they now enjoy. For example there were then no gaslights. At night-time large cities had no kind of lights in the streets, which made it very unsafe to be out after the sun went down. It was not until the reign of Charles II. that even London became lighted with oil lamps. Not only were they without gas, but they were also without luciter matches. In those days when the people wanted a light they had to use a flint, and steel, and dry rags, and it was often a very troublesome busi

ness.

Travelling at that time was extremely difficult and very costly. If our young friends had lived in those days, they would have known nothing about Sunday-school trips to the sea side, and other interesting places. The great bulk of working people never went far beyond the parish in which they had been born. In the best of roads, there were deep ruts, which in bad weather would half bury a conveyance. It happened almost every day that coaches stuck fast, until a team of cattle could be got from some neighbouring farm to drag them out of the mud. On account of the badness of the roads coal was never seen in any part of England except in those districts where it was dug up, or in the districts in which it could be carried by Two hundred years ago it cost £7 to carry a ton of merchandise from Birmingham to London, and £12 to carry

sea.

a ton from London to Exeter. Light goods were carried on pack horses. The food the people lived upon was very coarse. Respectable people, as they are called, never thought of eating bread made of wheat. Nearly all the people, farmers and tradesman, as well as the labouring class, lived almost entirely on rye, barley, and oats.

And such commod

In those days food for the mind was as costly as food for the body. Books were very scarce. It then took as long time to send a book from London to York, as it now takes to send one from London to California. Very few of the people could read, still fewer were able to write. Postage was very expensive and very few letters were sent. Even no further back than one hundred and fifty years, the London letter bag has been known to arrive in Edinburgh with only one letter in it; and, on several occasions, the Edinburgh mail arrived in London containing only one letter ! All articles of clothing cost much more in those days than they do now: ities as sugar, tea, coffee, salt, candles, and soap, were all very dear. So that our young friends will see that it is a matter of thankfulness that they live in England and not in Africa, and that they live in the nineteenth century and not the seventeenth. Remember then in your morning and evening prayers how many things you have to be thankful for. And if troubles should come-as come they willdon't give way to the spirit of grumbling. Try to form the habit of looking at the bright side of things, for such a disposition, said one, was worth more than to be born to a fortune of a thousand a year, with a contrary disposition.

IN this number of the Hive there is the conclusion of a good story called "The Black Spectacles." We hope none of our young friends will be like Bella. Those who use black spectacles make themselves and everybody around hem miserable.

The Mouths and Remarkable Days.

BY THE REV. W. L. ROBERTS, HOLMFIRTH.

XII. DECEMBER.

ECEMBER is the twelfth and last month
It still retains the name

in our year. tenth month (decem means ten), which it possesed prior to the alteration of the calendar. The Anglo-Saxons called it Mid-winter month or Yule month. The first name being derived from the fact that the days arrive at their shortest, and often the weather at its coldest in this month; the meaning of the second name Yule we will try to give by-and-bye.

The most important day in this month is Christmas Day, the 25th. This day is set apart in Christian countries as the day of Christ's birth. It was not till nearly 200 years after the birth of Christ, that the commemoration of his birth became a common event amongst Christians, and for long after that there was no uniformity in the day thus set apart; moreover, the day now fixed for that event is supposed to be one of the most unlikely days in the year, because it would be the height of the rainy season in Judea, when certainly shepherds would not be watching their flocks by night in the field. One, and perhaps the principal reason, for fixing upon this period as the time for celebrating the birth of the Saviour is that on the 21st, of this month the sun reaches what is called the winter solstice, and we have the shortest day. From that day may be said to begin the revival of life in nature, and such a season was thought not to be inappropriate for special thoughts of Him by whom our higher spiritual life is secured. It very early became a time of great feasting, and of the interchanging of presents