Children manifest early symptoms of a similar instinct. Infants of two or three years can be seen squatting in the sand, excavating tunnels, or building prairie-dog towns. Young Indians insist on the privilege of breaking colts; the youngsters of the Bermuda Islanders straddle a plank and paddle around with a piece of driftwood, if their parents are too poor to afford them a canoe of their own. To a normal American boy a tool-box is a more welcome present than a velvet copy of Doré’s Illustrated Bible. Swiss peasant lads practice sharp-shooting with self-constructed cross-bows. The old English law which required the son of a yeoman to practice archery for three hours a day was probably the most popular statute of the British code. On new railroads, bridges, etc., artisans, plying their trade in the open air, are generally surrounded by crowds of young rustics, who forego the pleasures of nutting and nest-hunting for the sake of watching the manipulations of a new handicraft. Even in after years the instinct of constructiveness frequently breaks the shackles of etiquette, and princes and prelates have defied the gossip of their flunkeys by getting a set of tools and passing whole days in the retirement of an amateur workshop. The emperor Henry I. invented a number of ingenious hunting-nets and bird-traps. Mohammed II., the conqueror of Constantinople, forged his own chain-armor. Charles V., the arbiter of Europe, preferred watchmaking to every other pastime. Cardinal de Retz delighted in the construction of automatons. Peter the Great was the best ship-carpenter of his empire. B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.