send me to Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it." The king's answer was rather favourable. He was unwilling to lose a good servant for ever, and asked him how long he wished to be away; but this was as much as to say he should go upon conditions. When that one point was settled, and leave of absence conceded, Nehemiah got bolder and bolder. He asked for passports where needed, and an order on Asaph for timber, etc. The liberal monarch granted all, and even volunteered a cavalry escort to see him safe to the end of that long and perilous journey. In recording the first of these petitions the autobiographer, Nehemiah, suddenly informs us that the queen was sitting by the king's side. This looks as if he connected her somehow in his own mind with his petition and the king's bounty, and rather favours the notion that she was the famous Esther, and sympathised then and there with. her sad countryman by look or gesture. So Singleheart left the lap of luxury and rode with his escort from Shushan to Jerusalem. This ride passes for nothing in the Biblical account; whether it is so we can best ascertain by doing it ourselves. He reached Jerusalem, and showed rare wisdom the first day. Instead of proclaiming himself and his credentials, and going boldly to work, he lay quiet three days, doing nothing and learning everything, especially who would be likely to support him, who to oppose him. a parade, but a few trusty men on foot, and even to them he did not reveal "what God had put into his heart to do at Jerusalem." So, with his secret locked at present in his breast, he passed out by the gate of the valley and rode round the city, and under the silver light of the moon and stars viewed the clean gaps, the burned fragments of the gates, and the jagged breaches in the walls of the holy city. It was the right time to gaze on a great and fallen city: such a ruin is sad but beautiful in that tender light. The same stars that shone above it and upon it had glittered upon Solomon's temple, his impregnable walls, his imperial power. As Nehemiah looked on this contrast, piteous yet lovely beneath those unchanging stars, he wept, he prayed, he drank in the scene; and methinks it never left his mind in the good fight he fought thereafter by night as well as day. Nehemiah was a layman, and had a layman's good sense in religion; walls were necessary to the safety and glory of the city. They were also necessary to true religion. Idolaters must be kept out of the city, or idolatry could never be kept out of the Jewish mind. The whole history of the nation. showed this. Fresh from that starlight picture Nehemiah went to the Jewish nobles, priests, and princes, showed the powers he held under the hand of Artaxerxes, and urged them to rebuild the walls and revive the national glory. He has not told us what he said; but it is clear he found words of rare eloquence; for they all caught fire directly, and cried out, "Let us rise and build." (To be continued.) On the third day, in the middle of the night, he rose and took with him, not his Persian escort to make a clatter of hoofs and SOME PHASES OF ANIMAL LIFE. BY THE REV. J. G. WOOD, M.A. I. THE GREGARIOUS INSTINCT. WHY HY should some animals always herd | So it is with the antelopes. The gazelle together, while others, though be- lives in small herds, while the number of a longing to the same group, and indeed, being springbok herd rivals that of the bison in its near relatives, keep themselves aloof from best days. Yet in South Africa there are several species of antelope, such as the duykerbok, the rhoode-bok, the blue buck, and others, which are only to be found alone, or at the most, in pairs. each other? Thus the rabbit is always found in company, while the hare is essentially a solitary animal. The bison of America is never found alone, and in former times counted the numbers of its herds by thousands. Yet the buffalo of South Africa and the arnee of India are comparatively solitary animals. I may mention that we find similar examples among the birds, such as the chaffinch, the starling, and the dunlin or ox-bird. The wolves and jackals hunt in packs, while the fox, which is closely related to both these animals, hunts alone. The same remarkable discrepancy is seen even among insects, particularly in the hymenoptera. There are social bees, wasps, hornets, and ants. Each of these groups has its solitary representatives, which in many cases so closely resemble their social relatives that none but a practised eye can distinguish the one from the other. The gregarious instinct is manifested in various ways. Some animals, such as those which have already been mentioned, are permanently gregarious, and are always in personal communication with each other. Some are only partly gregarious, and at distant intervals are subject to some strange instinct which compels them to associate together in countless myriads. Others again, although they have their dwellings in close proximity to each other, are only social out of doors, each family considering, like Englishmen, that their home is their castle. We will take a few examples of each of these types. Chief among the permanently gregarious animals is, or rather was, the bison of North America (Bison Americanus). 66 Only a few years ago the bison simply blackened the prairies with its countless multitudes. It formed the very life of the red man, just as the seal tribe are the life of the Eskimos of the present day. The tent or wigwam" in which he lived was made of the skins of the bison stretched over a framework of poles, very much like the piles of hop-poles stacked for the winter. These simple dwellings could be erected in half an hour, and taken apart in fifteen minutes. Then, a pair of poles being fastened to each side of a horse, so that the ends trailed on the ground, the skins were tied across the poles, and upon the skins were placed the rest of the simple baggage. In this way a large encampment could be removed in a wonderfully short space of time, thus suiting the restless nature of a race which depended on hunting for livelihood. The robes in which the natives envelop themselves in cold weather were made of the skins of the bison, the natives having the art of dressing the skin so that it is as pliable as silk, and, if wetted, can be dried without becoming hard and stiff as is usually the case with leather. Sometimes the whole of the hair was removed, leaving the skin as white as vellum, only perfectly pliable. Such skins were only used by the great warrior chiefs, who took a pride in covering them with rude drawings illustrating the military achievements of the owner. Again, the skins of the old bulls were reserved for the purpose of making the small circular shields which form part of the equipment of a warrior. The shield is only two feet in diameter, and yet an entire bull's hide is used in making it. The hoofs are also required. The mode of making it is briefly as follows. A circular hole is made in the ground, rather larger than the intended shield, and in it a fire is lighted. The hide, which has previously been deprived of its hair, is spread on the ground, and a circle traced on it, the centre being the apex of the shoulder, and the circumference being the edge of the hide. The rest of the skin and the hoofs are meanwhile boiled down into glue. The future shield is then laid over the hole, and glue poured on it, the hide being kept in its place by a number of pegs driven into the ground round its edge. The heat and glue together cause the hide to contract, and as it does so the pegs are relaxed. This process goes on until the hide has contracted to half its width and twice its thickness. It is then trimmed round the edge, fitted with handles, and is complete. It will resist any arrow or spear, and will even turn a rifle bullet if it be struck at an angle. The flesh of the bison was the chief sustenance of the red men. That which was not eaten fresh was "jerked," i.e. cut into long, thin strips, hung over branches and dried in the sun. The word "jerked" is a corruption of "charqui." Much of the jerked beef was made into "pemmican," a food which has the double advantage of keeping good for any length of time, and comprising much nutriment in little bulk. The manufacture is simple enough. The dried meat is pounded until the fibres are separated, and then the fat is melted, and poured into it while boiling. It is then packed in bags made of hides, and preserved for future use. Our Arctic voyagers are obliged to depend largely on pemmican for their stores, though they use ordinary beef instead of charqui. Civilisation has produced its usual effect on the bison, and its most deadly weapon of destruction is the locomotive. When the Pacific Railway was first established, one of the many obstacles which it had to overcome lay in the bison herds. It is impossible to fence off such a railway, and in consequence the bisons took no notice of the rails, and frequently forced the driver to stop the train. Another danger followed. At certain The signals did not work, and the whole periods the bison herds take to migrating, passing from south to north, and in consequence crossing the rails. When a train passed through one of these migrating herds, the result was very remarkable. The bisons which had crossed the rails troubled themselves little about the train; but those on the south flung themselves madly against the cars. Some of the bulls actually charged the engine, and in spite of the "cowcatcher," several trains were thrown off the rails. system was thrown out of gear. The fact was that the bisons had found a new use for the telegraphic poles; they were excellent scratching posts, a luxury which the prairie does not afford, and the animals used them so vigorously that they soon broke the poles. Then the managers "protected" the poles by driving sharp spikes into them. They could not have made a greater mistake. They had not calculated on the toughness of a bison's hide. The animals were charmed with the spikes, and fought for the privilege of using Then came an utterly unforeseen incident. them. By degrees, however, civilisation won the battle, and the bisons remained on the | grounds. Then came the regularly organized north of the line. Only some fourteen or fifteen years ago, the numbers of the bisons were so great that even the incessant drain upon them by the red men, including the occasional raids when a herd of many thousands in number was decoyed to the brink of a precipice and then hurled into the valley beneath, made little impression on their countless multitudes. But other agencies came into operation, and the land which had hitherto been the undisputed property of wild animals was needed for the cultivation of cereals, and so the bison found itself gradually edged out of its feeding hunting parties, who took advantage of the fact that if a hunter can only hide himself when he fires, the herd take no alarm, but remain in their places, waiting to be shot. Each party consisted of but four men. There was the captain, who did all the shooting; there were two skinners and one skin-dresser, who was also cook and campkeeper. So skilled in the art of slaughtering did they become, that within a circle of two hundred yards' radius the captain of one of these gangs shot a hundred and twelve bisons in three-quarters of an hour. Within the years 1872-1874 no less than |