world's record--two minutes eight and three-quarter seconds. This is what no other horse ever accomplished, and the interesting phase of the situation is that the mare is even now in training to beat her own splendid record given above. As compared to the rate of speed in animals, those attained by man are interesting. A hundred yards has been run in ten seconds; two hundred yards in twenty and two-fifths; three hundred yards in thirty-one and a half; and a quarter of a mile in forty-eight and four-fifths seconds, by Messrs. A. Wharton, J. Shearman, C. G. Wood, and L. E. Myers respectively. Mr. W. G. George holds the championship for one mile and up to ten miles; his time for the former distance being four minutes eighteen and two-fifths seconds, and for the latter fifty-one minutes twenty seconds. For fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five miles Mr. G. A. Dunning holds the record; the first distance being covered in one hour twenty-four minutes and twenty-four seconds; the last in two hours thirty-three minutes forty seconds. The same gentleman is champion at forty miles. Mr. J. A. Squires has run thirty miles in three hours seventeen minutes thirty-six and a-half seconds; and Mr. J. E. Dixon is fifty-mile champion with six hours eighteen minutes and twenty-six and one-fifth seconds--all truly marvellous performances. CHAPTER V. THE SNOW-WALKERS. This morning-- We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament; No cloud above, no earth below, A universe of sky and snow. The sun shines, and a rosy suffusion is over the landscape. All the fences are buried deep, and the trees stand starkly outlined against the sky. Millions of snow-crystals glint athwart the fields. Birds swarm in the garden--the home birds more confiding and the wild birds tame. Tits hang to the suet bags, and a general assembly flock to the cornsheaf. A ring-ouzel flies wildly from the rowan-tree, and four or five species of thrushes are among the berries of the shrubs.