Well, I'm told they carry them in their boots! These are made of cloth, and each is large enough to hold a child five years old! ROOK COURTS AND BLACKBIRD POWWOWS. DEAR JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT: In England, where I come from, I have seen meetings of vast numbers of birds, though never as many of such different kinds as those named by Z.R.B. in the letter which you gave us in July. Sometimes, a great number of rooks gather in a ring, and in the center of it is one lonely, dejected-looking rook, who holds his head down in silence. The other rooks seem to hold a consultation, chattering and cawing back and forth, sometimes one alone and sometimes all together, until they seem to decide what to do. Then three or four old, solemn-looking rooks fly upon the lonely one and put him to death, as if he had been found guilty of some dreadful crime. In this country, during spring, the blackbirds meet almost daily in the tops of high trees, especially elms and locusts, and there they chatter by the hour. Sometimes a few will fly off, angrily, with quick, sharp notes, to some tree a little way off. After a while, two or three more birds will join them from the large body. Then, perhaps, some of them will go back as "peace commissioners," and after a few more flights back and forth, and endless chatter, the little party may return to the main body; or, increasing in number, may form a second crowd as noisy as the first. No doubt you have heard and seen many such powwows, dear Jack. Long may you live to watch the birds and repeat to us their wisdom! Truly your friend, C.B.M. AN INTERVAL NOT ON THE PROGRAMME. I'm told that at Pompeii, Italy, in the year 79, a play was being acted in one of the theaters, when a storm of cinders fell, buried the whole city, and, of course, put a stop to the play, which has never been completed. A few months ago, however, an operatic manager named Languri made up his mind to have a new theater just where the old one stood; so, he printed in the Italian newspapers a notice that ran something like this: "After a lapse of eighteen hundred years, the theater of Pompeii will be re-opened, with the opera of 'La Figlia del Reggimento.' I ask the continuation of the favor shown to my predecessor, Marcus Quintus Martius, and beg to assure the public that I shall make every effort to equal the rare qualities he displayed during his management." If only Marcus Quintus Martius and his actors, and musicians, and the ancient audience, could have been at that re-opening of their long-buried theater, how they would have stared! THE LETTER-BOX.