One of the most famous of the crab family, not only on account of his part in agriculture, but because of his funny ways, is the robber-crab. You should read about the wild life of adventure some of these crabs lead--regular Robinson Crusoes who get wrecked on islands far away from home and build houses there and shift for themselves in many ingenious ways, just as the human Robinson Crusoe did. Kingsley's "Madam How and Lady Why" has some interesting pages about them; and so has Darwin's "Voyage Around the World." Of the many things that have been written about beavers the following are among the most interesting: The story of the beaver in "Stories of Adventure," edited by Edward Everett Hale; "The Forest Engineer," by T. W. Higginson, in Johonnott's "Glimpses of the Animal World"; "How the Beaver Builds His House," in "The Animal Story Book," edited by Lang; "The Builders," in Lang's "Ways of Wood Folks"; and "The House in the Water," by Roberts. The most interesting book of all on beavers, however, is "The Beaver World," by Mills, referred to in this chapter. I have not told you one-half of the remarkable things you will find about them in this book. One of the most curious is about how a beaver sometimes gets his breath in the winter time. He may have to travel quite a distance under the ice, and one good breath has to last him to the end of the journey. "But does he hold his breath all this time? How can he?" He can't. He just uses the same breath over again. See how he does it. The Mills book tells. Look up the muskrat and compare his ways with those of the beaver. In the "Country Life Reader" you will find a graphic description of one of the perils of life for the beavers and their cousins the muskrats; namely in attacks by the great horned owl. [Illustration: CITY LIFE AMONG THE FLAMINGOES We don't have to go to Florida to get this bird's-eye view of a flamingo city. It is one of the habitat groups in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and reproduces perfectly the architecture and the social life of these interesting people.] CHAPTER IX (SEPTEMBER) On the housetop, one by one Flock the synagogue of swallows Met to vote that Autumn's gone. --_Gautier: "Life."_ FARMERS WHO WEAR FEATHERS