Along the Kennebec river are many huge ice-houses. The ice is sent away in big ships in summer. It is raised high in the air and swung on a sloping plank which reaches to the ship's deck. Block after block is dispatched in this way very quickly. We boys used to get pieces of old carpeting and put on the ice. Then each boy would seat himself on a carpet-covered block of ice, and, in something less than a wink, we would find ourselves on the ship. We did this, the boys and I, till our mothers found it out. _Then we stopped._ Your constant reader, JOHN W. MORE ABOUT TURTLES. DEAR JACK: I saw some letters about turtles in your department, and so I thought I would write to you about something I noticed. I have a small turtle, and I have seen that the shell scales off in little pieces just the shape of the divisions on its back. It shuts its eyes by raising the lower lid. Has any one else noticed the first peculiarity? Your reader, W. I. L. A FISH THAT WEAVES ITS NEST. MR. C. F. HOLDER, I hear, is to tell you in the June ST. NICHOLAS about some fishes and their young, so this is a good time to show you this letter from my friend Ernest Ingersoll, concerning a fish that weaves its nest. DEAR JACK: Among the small fishes that inhabit the streams and ditches along the Atlantic coast of the Northern States, is the four-spined stickleback. Like the rest of the sticklebacks, this species makes a nest in which the eggs are deposited. The male fish makes the nest himself and defends it with great spirit. It is about half an inch high and three-eighths of an inch in thickness. It is composed of stalks of water-weeds and small stuff of that kind, bound together by a glutinous thread which the fish spins out from a gland in his body, and which is wound round and round the nest to bind it together. It frequently happens, however, that in poking apart the straws with his nose this living bobbin will pass his body through the nest and back again, thus weaving the thread he reels out into the substance of the nest and sewing it tightly together. Yours truly, ERNEST INGERSOLL. A CLEVER HUMMING-BIRD. You all remember, I am sure, "Robin's Umbrella," which was described and shown to you from this pulpit two months ago. Now I'll tell you about the way in which a clever humming-bird shielded her little ones from the rain. There they were, a nestful, and the rain beginning to fall. The people who had watched the nest out of their window were concerned about the young birds, but the mother-bird evidently was prepared for the emergency. Near the nest grew a large leaf,--it was a butternut tree,--and on one side of the nest a small twig stuck out. When the drops began to fall, she came quickly, and with many tugs pulled the leaf over the little nest, for a roof, and hooked it by the twig on the other side, which held it firmly.