"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." Another reference to thyme is to be found in the beautiful and pathetic story of "The Adopted Child" by Mrs. Hemans. The orphan boy in speaking to the kind lady who has adopted him, says: "Oh! green is the turf where my brothers play Through the long, bright hours of the summer day; They find the red cup-moss where they climb, And they chase the bee o'er the scented thyme." [Illustration: THYME. FROM KOEHLER'S MEDICINAL-PFLANZEN. CHICAGO: A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.] DESCRIPTION OF PLATE.--_A_, plant somewhat reduced; 1, 2, leaves; 3, flower bud; 4, 5, flower; 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, different views of the flower; 9, flower without stamens; 10, stamens; 11, pollen grains; 12, 13, pistil; 14, developing fruit; 15, transverse section of fruit; 16, ripening fruit; 17, 18, 19, seed. A CURIOUS SURVIVAL. ELLA F. MOSBY. The tongue of a bird, says Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller, is the tool that shows how he gets his living, as the anvil and hammer tell of the blacksmith's work, the hod of the bricklayer's, and the chisel and plane of the carpenter's. The tongue of the woodpecker is a barbed spear, very adhesive or sticky on its surface. We know at a glance that he uses it to capture insects hiding in the crevices of the bark, and if they are too small to be speared by its sharp point, they will stick to its gluey surface. "The four-tined fork" of the little nuthatch is admirable for catching grubs out of the rough tree-trunk, and the slender tube of the humming-bird's tongue proves him a dainty taster of flower-sweets, though he, too, catches insects, with a _click_ of his long, sharp bill as he flies, when flowers are rare. But there is a small bird whose tongue does not tell his own story. His tropical ancestry of many and many a year ago, like the humming-bird, sucked honey from flower-cups and juices from fruits, and so by a very curious survival of structure, this Cape May warbler that feeds on insects now has the tongue cleft at the tip and provided with a fringe like the iridescent and shining sunbird's, the honey-creeper's and flower-pecker's of southern isles. Their tongues, "pencils of delicate filaments," brush the drops of honeyed nectar from the deep tubes of tropic flowers and their sharp, needle-like bills probe the juicy fruits, though, like humming-birds, they adds small insects to their bill of fare when necessary.