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THE ELK.

It

THE Elk, or Moose-deer, is the largest of all the different kinds of deer. has great clumsy horns and coarse brown and white hair, and is not nearly so elegant an animal as most of the other members of the great Deer Family. Unlike the generality of deer, also, it is very fierce in its wild state, and will spring on the hunter with the greatest fury; but when it is caught young, and tamed, it becomes quite tractable; and people have used it to draw carts and carry burdens, and have found it as docile as a young horse or mule.

But

Old writers used to assert that the Elk was able to change the colour of its skin. If it was near trees, it turned green, they said; if it was near stones, it turned stone-colour, and so on. when men came really to observe Elks, and not merely to repeat what was written about them, they found out that they can no more change their colour than you can.

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IN THE CORN-FIELD.

Ir was a warm autumn day, and the reapers were all busily at work in the golden corn field. The harvest was very good, and all the poor people rejoiced because they knew that they should have bread cheap in consequence. It is a sad thing for poor people when there is a bad harvest, for bread is more necessary to them than any other kind of food, and if they cannot get cheap bread they and their little ones must go hungry. Phoebe and Lucy Jenniton came to help their brothers in the corn field, and gathered up the corn they cut, and bound it into sheaves; but Lucy soon got tired of her part of the work, and in the middle of the day, just when the others were most busy, she fell fast asleep with her head upon one of the sheaves. There she slept on and on, until the sun was quite low in the sky. Then, when it was nearly time to go home, Alec woke her by giving her a kiss, and all the other reapers came round and laughed at her.

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THE LITTLE MILLER.

THIS is worthy Joe Tanner, the miller's man, with his little boy on his knee. When you ask little Joey what he is going to be when he is a man, he says "a jolly miller;" and he has a little wind-mill and is never so happy as when this is being turned for him. Mary, his eldest sister, who kneels by his side, is very good to little Joey; she washes him, dresses him, puts him to bed, gives him his dinner, and does everything for him, for these poor children's mother died soon after Joey was born, and Mary has had the entire charge of the house and of her young brother and sister ever since. She is a very thoughtful little woman, and her father says she is a real treasure to him. She gets up early and lights the fire and makes his breakfast, and when he has gone to work, she cleans the house and has everything comfortable for him by the time he returns home in the evening

to tea.

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