air breathing animals like other spiders, for some unaccountable reason they prefer to live under the water among the fishes, where they spin a web in the shape of a bag, with the opening on the under side, just like a diving bell, and, having filled it with air, they lay their eggs and bring up their young in their cosy subaqueous home, finding plenty of food in the insects which live among the aquatic plants. The body of these spiders is covered with fine hairs, which prevent the water from touching the body, and, by their total reflection of light, give them a silvery appearance when in the water-whence their name.

The manner in which this spider fills her nest with air is most curious. After spinning the threads, the spider goes to the surface of the water, and, by a quick movement of the hind legs, catches a small bubble of air between them and the abdomen, with which she descends to the nest, into which it is liberated. After this process has been patiently repeated many times, the nest becomes full of air, and is ready for

occupancy.

It must not be supposed that these nests as constructed are perfectly air-tight. The small meshes are quite sufficient to retain the air bubble and prevent it from rising to the surface. This phenomenon is due to the peculiar and complex principle of surface tension, by which the thin film at the surface of a liquid acts, in a certain sense, like a solid covering. By an application of the same principle a cylinder of wire gauze or even a fine sieve, may be filled with water, and needles, or a steel pen, be made to float, if carefully placed upon its surface. Those insects which walk so easily over the surface of ponds and streams are indebted to this same principle for their support, and not to the inherent buoyancy of their bodies.

BRIGHT'S DISEASE.

The name of this dread disease originates in the fact that it was first described by Dr. Bright, of London.

It has two forms-the acute and the chronic, both of which have sub-divisions. The acute form is caused by taking cold, checked perspiration, intemperance, and especially scarlet fever, and its symptoms are pain in the back, diminution of the urine, irritability of the bladder, fever, nausea, frequent vomiting, dryness of skin, loss of appetite, dropsy noticed first about the eyes in the morning, followed by dropsy

of lower limbs and general dropsical manifestations. The "Bright's disease" which is the subject of so much popular conversation at present is of a chronic nature and includes many diseased conditions of the kidneys, so that the name "Bright's diseases" would be a more appropriate appellation; this, in fact, was the title Dr. Bright first gave these disorders.

It is well to have a general knowledge of some of the premonitory symptoms, for the reason that some forms of Bright's disease are unattended with pain at their inception, and the appetite and digestion in many cases are absolutely unaffected. Often there is no perceptible disturbance of the general nutrition for a long period after the disease commences, the patient preserves his strength and power in many instances for months after disease is steadily undermining his health and bringing him to a premature end.

These premonitory symptoms are severe attacks of headache of remarkably long duration, occurring often in middle life in an apparently healthy person; sleeplessness and unrest, the sleep broken by troubled dreams; disorders of vision, attended with repulsive smell of the breath; occasional attacks of palpitation of the heart accompanied with vertigo, and a feeling of suffocation or want of breath; nervous irritability, abnormal depression and moroseness; an excessive quantity of urine secreted every twenty-four hours.

Occasional symptoms are signs of dyspepsia, headache, a marked tendency to perspire, pallor of the skin and a bloated appearance of the hands and particularly of the lower eyelids, and palpitation. Then are witnessed somewhat frequent attacks of acute stomach derangement, accompanied by severe retching, and commencing without any assignable cause, but often preceded or accompanied by a marked temporary decrease in the amount of urine secreted. The heart's action continues violent and anaemia advances. Dropsy is rarely prominent except in a mild form and near the end. The nervous system becomes affected, and not infrequently there are witnessed violent convulsions. The eyesight becomes impaired.

Finally the patient dies, usually from secondary mischief, such as pleurisy, erysipelas, bronchitis or pneumonia. But it should be always understood that a person may have one, or many, or all of the above named symptoms and yet not have any of Bright's diseases. What we wish to indicate here is, that a person noticing these symptoms should proceed at once to visit some physician and thus ascertain what is the

real trouble. It is the practice of patent medicine vendors to fill their advertisements and almanacs with detailed descriptions of these symptoms for the purpose of frightening people into the belief that they have Bright's disease, with the expectation that a sale of their "infallible remedy" will be the natural result. To all this rot and rubbish, sensible people are not to listen. If you have any alarming indications of approaching physical danger, go to the tried and trusted old doctor and get his mature and skilled opinion on the matter.-J. H. Sargent, M.D., in the Healthy Home.

MONOTONY IN FARM LIFE.

That "variety is the spice of life" is very-generally admitted, says the Country Gentleman. Yet the farmers, as a class, do not get as much of the spice of variety as they should. Their lives are often monotonous almost beyond endurance. It must be confessed, however, that farmers are themselves largely to blame for this monotony. The isolation of the farmer's house is one of the greatest obstacles in the way of social enjoyment he has to deal with. It is our duty to one another to cultivate social habits, to visit each other's homes, compare notes, and make suggestions as to the best methods of farming, etc. Nor does our duty end at this neighborly intercourse. Our first obligations, like charity, begin at home. We should make the farm home just as attractive as our means will allow.

How many farm homes are utterly devoid of attraction! The house is unpainted and uninviting; the fences are dilapidated; the gates are sagged down to the ground; the entire surroundings are dreary in the extreme. In the yard grow noxious weeds where roses and other ornamental plants should be seen. Scrubby bushes stand where a neat grass plot should be. Instead of an orchard of beautiful fruit trees, we see here and there at long intervals, a few broken-limbed, neglected apple and peach trees, and a dense thicket of bushes hard by.

The adjacent fields have been cultivated for years in the same crops plowed by the same shallow running plows and producing their steadily decreasing little crops of corn and cotton. No manure has ever been applied since the land was first cleared. The same round of drudgery has been gone through with year after year; the same cry of "hard times" has always been heard on this farm, and the same doleful

expression has been seen on the farmer's face for years past. Indeed, this lugubrious expression seems to have settled down to stay, and stay it doubtless will until the grave shall close over his weary form.

The work stock receives but a scanty and monotonous ration of corn and fodder, while the milk cows have to subsist on what they can glean from the bare forests and old fields.

Is it at all strange that boys should abandon this kind of sordid, wearisome life and flee to the city as soon as they become of age? It would indeed be strange if they remained there.

But think of the hardships the poor wife must endure upon such a cheerless farm as this. Oftentimes without even the common luxury of a vegetable garden, and, perchance, little or no poultry or milk to aid her in her culinary cares. Is it not enough to run a sensitive woman crazy? There are thousands of just such dreary, monotonous, cheerless farm houses in the west and south, and perhaps elsewhere. Executive ability is not confined to men, by any means. I know plenty of women who have more practical common sense in a minute than their incapable husbands will have in a lifetime. Some women should hold the tiller and guide the agricultural ship. Had they full control of things there would be far less monotony in farm life. They would supply both the spice of variety and the sugar of sweet contentment to the boys and girls of the household.

EVERY MAN HIS OWN TAILOR.

The national costume of the people of India has been much praised for its simplicity, lightness and adaptability to the climate of the country. The saree, the dhotur and the turban are capable of being manufactured in various tints and colors, and of being folded and displayed on the person in various ways. The turban possesses the greatest adaptability to the taste of individuals, and we find that this taste has been exercised by the people to distinguish the sect of the wearer, and in some cases the priests. But the ingenuity that has been exercised in the form and color of the chief articles of dress of the people of this country is not the ingenuity of the tailor but the ingenuity of a people happily ignorant of the tailor's art. They are worn by the people exactly as they pass from the weaving-looms; hence when presents of cloth are made in families-and the custom of making such

presents is general-these presents are described as "cloths." A bride and bridegroom receiving a present of cloth at a wedding ceremony are at once dressed in complete suits of "cloths." Sarees, dhoturs and turbans are simply cloths of various lengths, especially the turbans; and it is not at all necessary that the wearer of the cloth and the cloth itself should be of any relative size, for these cloths fits any body or any body fits the garment. The chief idea which appears to run through the Indian national costume is how to make nature do all the tailoring. Tailor-made made clothing has been introduced into India since the importation of needles and thread; but the saree, though made brighter by gay colors than formerly, still retains its distinction as a garment that requires no tailoring to fit it to the female form. Throughout the villages of India soap is regarded as a natural curiosity, and is never kept in stock by the village shopkeeper. It is, however, finding a place in the large towns in the shops of grocery dealers, who do a retail business in eau-de-cologne, but the consumption is by no means considerable. The total consumption of soap in this country does not exceed 100,000 hundred-weight per annum, or one hundredweight among 2,500 persons.-Times of India.

MISCELLANEOUS.

LYNCHED BY SPARROWS.

One day last Spring, as I was going down town I saw a flock of about fifty sparrows on the ground in a vacant lot on the corner of Thirteenth and Central streets. They were making as much fuss and noise as a political ward meeting, where every other man had a candidate for nomination, and all wanted to be heard at the same time. So intently were they engaged that I walked up to within twenty feet of them without their taking the alarm. I found that they had in their midst a full grown young rat who seemed to be completely cowed, and paralyzed with fear, and trembling all over. As long as he remained quiet they merely stood around and chattered and shrieked at him, but when he make a move they would pounce down in front of him and drive him back. There was an old wooden side-walk at the time on Thirteenth street, and it is probable he had a hole under it which he was trying to reach. Having an engagement to meet I was obliged to leave them. In about two hours I came back that way and turned aside to see what had become of the rat. I found the poor fellow lying within a few feet of the side-walk, his head literally torn to pieces; his eyes pecked out and blood and brains oozing from their sockets. He had been lynched in true western style, and