A few competitors complained that the first picture in the last line was very obscure. In our copy it was plain enough and a large majority of solvers adopted “Spring,” in preference to any other reading. One correspondent ventures to hope that ladies will be well assured of their peril before acting on the advice given. As he points out, it is not at all desirable that a carriageful of people should, for instance, be disturbed by such athletic exercises every time a fog-signal is heard. Such a caution is perhaps, not wholly unnecessary, for there are people who “fear” a collision every time they enter a train. By the time this “Cycle” is ended how wise we shall all be! Competitors whose names have not been mentioned above may rest assured that their papers have been carefully preserved in view of the special award to be made at the end of the series. Not one solution has been destroyed, and quite possibly the greater prizes will fall to outsiders after all. [Illustration: ARTISTS.] THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS. BY ERIC BROAD. We wander through the smiling fields, We gather fragrant flowers, Our childish eyes the sunshine watch From shady, sheltered bowers; We have our dreams of joy to be, Nor give a thought to loss; For youth is all too blind to see The Shadow of the Cross. Years come and go; tears flow and fall, Grief touches us awhile; And then we sleep, while round us glows The sunset of a smile; Joy lingers just a day with us, Life’s pathway seems as moss: But, faintly purple, looms ahead The Shadow of the Cross. Time’s drifted snows have gathered thick, Yet still the chase is long, Truth’s snow-white bird soars out of sight, But faint we hear its song; And we have lost Hope’s Light awhile, Count Love at best but dross; We struggle through a purple gloom— The Shadow of the Cross. At last! At last! a music rare Enchants our aching ears; And once again, not far ahead, The radiant sun appears: Our souls on buoyant wings are borne, And we retrieve our loss,— A rich content is ours, beyond The Shadow of the Cross. LESSONS FROM NATURE. BY JEAN A. OWEN, Author of “Forest, Field and Fell,” etc. PART IV. THE LOCUSTS THAT GO BY BANDS. The locusts we take as an instance of what unity in action—co-operation, in fact—can effect. “They have,” says the wise man, “no king, yet they go forth all of them by bands.” Creatures these are so frail, so unsubstantial, that they can be crushed to naught almost; yet they are able to thwart man’s watchful care, and to undo the work of the industry of months, when they settle in hosts, brought by some mysterious instinct, sometimes by the scarcity of those other creatures which, under the laws that keep even the balance of nature, feed upon them, so reducing their numbers.