Its nest, usually placed on grassy knolls, in fresh-water marshes near the sea, is made of dried weeds and grasses and lined with the down of the bird. It is evident that the female performs all the duties of incubating the eggs and carrying for the young, for during the nesting period large flocks are observable that consist entirely of males, constantly feeding in their accustomed haunts. This ocean duck feeds “on small mollusks and fishes, for which it dives almost constantly, both in the sandy bays and amidst the tumbling surf, sometimes fishing at the depth of several fathoms and floating buoyantly among the surf of the raging billows, where it seems as unconcerned as if it were on the most tranquil waters.” Frank M. Woodruff. A BACK-YARD CLASS. The Farnum’s back-yard was something disagreeable. Still it didn’t matter much, thought the children, as long as the front yard was nicely kept and there was a high fence all around the back. Besides, Mr. Farnum was away from home traveling all the week; Mrs. Farnum was so busy that she hardly ever saw the disreputable yard, and the children, Rob, Lora and Baby Jim, liked best to play away from home. At last it dawned on the mother’s mind that they were hardly ever at home except to eat and to sleep and to get ready to go away again and she began to worry about it and wonder what she should do. That very day Rob came running in to show a bug which he had in a bottle. It was such a queer looking specimen that all became interested in it at once. “I’ll keep it till papa comes back, he’ll be sure to know!” exclaimed Rob proudly. “But this is only Tuesday, my boy. You can’t keep it in that bottle all the week without food or drink. It must not be left to starve,” Mrs. Farnum replied. “We’ll find it something to eat,” cried the children, and off they ran. But this was not such an easy matter. Mr. Bug would not touch any of the back-yard “vegetables,” as Rob called the variety of weeds that clung to the rotten fence boards or matted the ground of the large garden. In spite of their efforts the bug stuck to the corner of the bottle and refused to be comforted, with food, at least. At last, in despair, Rob ran to the drug store and asked what he could give the bug to “make it die a peaceful death.” “Just put a layer of pyrethrum in the bottom of your bottle,” answered the druggist, “keep it corked tight, and you can make every bug in your yard die happy. Pyrethrum is a powder that is harmless to people (though of course you must not eat it), but the least smell of it kills insects.” Rob went home delighted. “I’ll make a collection of bugs, as Sam Ward does of butterflies,” he declared. “I’d help you if it wasn’t for those horrid spiders,” said Lora. “I’m afraid as death of them ever since I read about a baby dying from a spider-bite.”