and driven in a stifling cloud which penetrates every object it meets. As a protection from this, the camel's skin. is hard and tough, covered with a few thin scattered hairs, except in particular places, where it grows in tufts; and in those parts of the body and limbs which support the animal when it kneels or lies down, the skin is thickened into callosities that resist the weight that presses upon them.

These feathers are represented, not as microscopic objects, but

as they appear to the

naked eye. They are admirable examples of their class, and well exhibit the difference between a wing and a tail-feather. The owl is well known to be a bird of prey which seeks its food, small birds, mice, rats, and reptiles, -by night. It skims

along the hedge-rows and by the farm buildings so noiselessly, that the timid little creatures it seeks are not aware

of its presence till it pounces upon them. This smooth, noiseless flight, so different from the loud flapping of wings caused by birds of other habits and pursuits, (rooks and pigeons, for instance,) is obtained by the peculiar formation of its pinions. The quills are covered beneath with a fine down, which prevents their rattling one upon another in the motion of flying, and the plumage lining each side of every quill is also edged with a smooth down, which deadens the vibration of the air under the stroke of the owl's wing.

The pinion feathers of most birds are enabled to preserve their broad van-like form, in spite of the resistance of the air during the rapid and powerful action of the bird in flying, by means of an edging, both serrated (or sawlike) and hooked, by which each separate filament which forms the van of the feather is locked into the one on each side of it. Any one may see an example of it by examining the feather of a common goose-quill. The tail feathers of the peacock, which are not used by the bird in flying, do not require this serrated edging, but hang loosely and gracefully from each other, until meeting at the "eye," they there form the smooth, glossy assemblage of brilliant colors for which the peacock is so conspicuous and so well known.

THE AFRICAN KING.

WHATEVER authority this king may have over his people certainly does not appear to be derived from the splendor of his apparel. Crown he has none, save the one tuft of hair left upon his else bare scalp ;-the spear on which he leans is his only sceptre, and one cannot imagine a sovereign with bare legs and naked feet bestowing upon any of his subjects the insignia of the order of the garter. Nevertheless he may be every inch a king, and as such he may be introduced to the reader. This is Moselekatse, King of the Amazooloo, and first made known to Englishmen by Captain Harris, in a most interesting book of Travels in Southern Africa.

Moselekatse possessed a fine, tall, well-proportioned figure, with rather a pleasing countenance, although marked with wily cunning and suspicion; with a small piercing eye, surmounted by an ample forehead. He certainly looks like one whose courage and energy mark him out as a king among the men of a wild and savage