A great many things can be made out of other things. A very fair turkey
can be made out of a horse-chestnut, or even a common chestnut.
Look at Fig. 1 in the above picture: there you have the turkey complete.
I will tell you how I made him. I first took a nice round chestnut, and
stuck into it a bent pin to represent the neck; then I stuck in two
other pins to represent the legs; then I took a piece of putty (dough,
or bread worked up to the consistence of dough, will do), and made a
stand into which I stuck the legs. He then looked as he is represented
in Fig. 2. I then took a small piece of putty, and modelled on to the
bent pin the head and neck of the turkey. After this I drew with pen and
ink on thick paper, and cut with a pair of scissors, a thing like Fig.
3, and two things like Fig. 4; these were the tail and wings. I fastened
them in their proper places with thick gum (short pins will do). Then
with some red paint I painted the head and feet of the bird, and I had a
very excellent turkey, but I felt thankful that I need not eat it for my
dinner.
Figs. 5 and 6 show how a walnut shell may be changed into a turtle
shell. Fig. 5 is the walnut shell, and Fig. 6 is the turtle; and I would
not give a fig for the boy who, with a pen and ink and a little putty
(dough will do), is not smart enough to make it.
[Illustration]
Johnny and Mary drive out in the Park,
And doubtless are having no end of a lark;
She holds Baby Rose with a motherly air,
And he handles his spirited horse with great care.
* * * * *
=Spiders that Kill Birds.=--Everybody knows that spiders catch flies and
other insects; but that some of them kill little birds may not be so
generally known. A traveller in Brazil tells us that he caught one of
them in the very act, while going through a forest in the Amazons. The
spider was a hairy fellow, with a body two inches long, and eight legs
measuring seven inches each, from end to end. The writer describing the
incident says: "I was attracted by a movement of the monster on a tree
trunk; it was close beneath a deep crevice in the tree, across which was
stretched a dense white web. The lower part of the web was broken, and
two small birds, finches, were entangled in the pieces. One of them was
quite dead, and the other nearly so. I drove away the monster, and took
the birds, but the second one soon died. The fact of species of Mygale,
to which genus this spider belongs, sallying forth at night, mounting
trees, and sucking the eggs and young of hummingbirds, has been recorded
long ago by Madame Merian and Palisot de Beauvois; but, in the absence
of any confirmation, it has come to be discredited. From the way the
fact has been related it would appear that it had been merely derived
from the report of natives, and had not been witnessed by the narrators.
The Mygales are quite common insects: some species make their cells
under stones, others form artistical tunnels in the earth, and some
build their dens in the thatch of houses. The natives call them Aranhas
carangueijeiras, or crab-spiders. The hairs with which they are clothed
come off when touched, and cause a peculiar and almost maddening
irritation. The first specimen that I killed and prepared was handled
incautiously, and I suffered terribly for three days afterward. I think
this is not owing to any poisonous quality residing in the hairs, but to
their being short and hard, and thus getting into the fine creases of
the skin. Some Mygales are of immense size. One day I saw the children
belonging to an Indian family with one of these monsters secured by a
cord round its waist, by which they were leading it about the house as
they would a dog."
[Illustration]