“Yon rising wave licks off the snow, Winds on the crag each other chase, In little powdery whirls they blow The misty fragments down its face. “The sea is cold, and dark its rim, Winter sits cowering on the world, And I, besides this watery brim, Am also lonely, also cold.” I spoke, and drew toward a rock, Where many mews made twittering sweet; Their wings upreared, the clustering flock Did pat the sea-grass with their feet. A rock but half submerged, the sea Ran up and washed it while they fed; Their fond and foolish ecstasy A wondering in my fancy bred. Joy companied with every cry, Joy in their food, in that keen wind, That heaving sea, that shaded sky, And in themselves, and in their kind. The phantoms of the deep at play! What idless graced the twittering things; Luxurious paddlings in the spray, And delicate lifting up of wings. Then all at once a flight, and fast The lovely crowd flew out to sea; If mine own life had been recast, Earth had not looked more changed to me. “Where is the cold? Yon clouded skies Have only dropped their curtains low To shade the old mother when she lies, Sleeping a little, ’neath the snow. “The cold is not in crag, nor scar, Not in the snows that lap the lea, Not in yon wings that beat afar, Delighting, on the crested sea; “No, nor in yon exultant wind That shakes the oak and bends the pine. Look near, look in, and thou shalt find No sense of cold, fond fool, but thine!” With that I felt the gloom depart, And thoughts within me did unfold, Whose sunshine warmed me to the heart: I walked in joy, and was not cold. —Jean Ingelow. SNAILS OF POND, RIVER AND BROOK. Many of my readers have doubtless kept an aquarium at some time in their life and have stocked it with several goldfish, a small turtle and some fresh-water snails. They have also, without doubt, stood in front of the aquarium and watched the strange antics of each of the three kinds of animals and have wondered at the swiftness with which the little snails progressed about the glass sides of the artificial pond. It is of these molluscan denizens of fresh water that I shall write in this article. In the fresh-water species the shell is not often rounded like that of the land snails, but is more frequently long and pointed, the spire resembling a church steeple. The animal, too, differs very greatly, the tentacles being either flat and triangular or long and very tapering. The eyes are not placed at the end of the eye-peduncles, as in the land shells, but are generally situated on little swellings at the base of the tentacles. They may be found in almost any body of water, adhering to stones, sticks, and other submerged objects, or crawling over the sandy or muddy bottom.