of the most interesting performances I have ever witnessed. Even crabs have a sense of humor and go through certain performance, presumably games. In Australia there are birds that build playhouses, aside from their nests, in the form of an arbor sometimes two or three feet long, which they decorate with bright objects." A YOUNG PRINCE OF COMMERCE. By Selden R. Hopkins. Boston. D. Lothrop Company. Price $1.25. We do not know of a better book to put into the hands of boys for the purpose of teaching them the fundamental principles of business than this little volume, which Mr. Hopkins has so ingeniously prepared. Most boys grow into young men without the slightest knowledge of business matters excepting mere buying and selling. The very things that should have been taught them in school at the same time with grammar and geography they know nothing about, and while their heads may be stocked with the rules of syntax and the names and boundaries of all the countries in the world, they may be helpless as babies in the transaction of any business that requires the use of forms or legal methods. It is one of the senseless peculiarities of our school system that it excludes certain subjects of study that are absolutely necessary and gives place to others that are practically useless. It is on that account that we strongly commend this little work as a supplementary reader in schools. In its pages Mr. Hopkins tells an interesting story and sandwiches in between its incidents just the information to which we have reference. The boy who reads it has obtained, when he has finished it, a clear understanding of the principles of trade. He knows the character of mortgages, notes, drafts, stocks and bonds, the theory of banking, discount, exchange and collateral, he learns all about the mysteries of Wall Street and how the brokerage business is conducted; in fine, he gets an excellent understanding of the way business is carried on in general. All this knowledge comes in incidentally, and in connection with the story. The book is very handsomely printed and bound. MARY THE MOTHER. Compiled by Rose Porter. Ill. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $3.00. The purpose of this beautiful volume is to give an outline story of Mary the Mother Maid, as told in the Holy Book, and by historical and legendary art, and in poetry. The theme, says the compiler in her preface, "though it lies within prescribed limits, is wide enough to embrace a broad field of thought, for it deals with all the most beautiful and precious productions of human genius and human skill as manifested by art which the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have bequeathed to us, and in them we can trace, present in shape before us, or suggested through inevitable associations, one prevailing idea. It is that of an impersonation in the feminine character of beneficence, purity and power, clothed in the visible form of Mary, the Mother of our Lord."