One evening, when I had a little company, and while Fanny Schell was singing an aria, he caused her to conclude with an unusually high scream, by announcing at the top of his voice, while he pointed to the vivarium: 'Ma, the leeches have all crawled out!' Imagine the feelings my little company had the rest of the evening. I shall never forget the fright James gave me one hot night in July; it was Saturday, I remember well, for that was one of my son's holidays, and he returned home toward night unusually covered with mud, from a long walk in the country, evidently having been taking practical lessons in ditching. He was so very quiet after he returned, that I might have known he was in mischief. However, when his bed-time came, he kissed me good-night, and said: 'O ma! I have such a surprise for you in the morning.' Unfortunately, I had the surprise that night. Business called my husband away from the city that morning, and I was alone. Waking up from a sound sleep about midnight, I distinctly heard somebody working on an anvil, like a blacksmith, 'ching-a-ling! ching-a-ling!' It evidently came from the drawing-room, and my fears at once told me it was a thief trying to break into the house. Next I heard some one whistle, like a man calling a dog, 'wheh! wheh! wheh!' Finally a dog barking, 'woo, woo, wooh!' Thoroughly alarmed, I sprang to the front-window, and called: 'Police! thieves!' until I managed to arouse the neighbors. I had the key of the front-door in my chamber; this I threw down to a police-officer, and in company with two others he boldly entered the house, lit the gas, and found--that vivarium full of bull-frogs! My son banished the frogs and introduced cat-fish, (or, as they call them in Boston, 'horn-pouts.') One night, my great Angora cat, a cat born in the Rue de Seine, educated in the best French _Ecole des chattes_, and brought to this country by my husband, fell a victim to _la gourmandise_, by falling into the vivarium while fishing for cat--horn-pout--fish. James found her there in the morning, drowned, and partially eaten up by those she had hoped to eat. She went into the _boudoir_ to Pout, and 'had done it.' That finished the vivarium. I sincerely hope these trials to mothers will never again become the rage, and that something dry will next tempt our children's mania for home amusements. CORNELIA. * * * * * 'The Kansas John Brown Song,' which lately appeared in these columns, and which we credited to the Kansas _Herald_--following the lead of the newspaper where we found it--was written by the Rev. William W. Patton, of Chicago, for the _Tribune_ of that city. * * * * *