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12. For instance, the young grasshopper comes from the egg a wingless insect, unable to move from place to place in any other way than by the use of its legs. As it grows larger it is soon obliged to cast off its skin; and, after one or two moltings, its body not only increases in size, but becomes proportionally longer than before, while little stump-like wings begin to make their appearance on the top of the back.

13. After this, the grasshopper continues to eat voraciously, grows larger and larger, and hops about without any aid from its short and motionless wings, repeatedly casts off its outgrown skin, appearing each time with still longer wings and more perfectly formed limbs. Finally it ceases to grow, sheds its skin for the last time, and comes forth a perfectly formed and mature grasshopper, with the power of spreading its ample wings, and of using them in flight.

14. Hence there are three periods in the life of an insect, more or less distinctly marked by corresponding changes of form, powers, and habits. In the first, or period of infancy, an insect is technically called a larva, -a word meaning a mask,- because therein its future form is more or less masked or concealed. In this first period, which is generally much the longest, insects are always wingless, pass most of their time in eating, grow rapidly, and usually cast off their skins repeatedly.

15. The second period is called the pupa state, from a slight resemblance that some chrysalids present to an

infant trussed in bandages, as was the fashion among the Romans. In this state those insects that undergo only a partial transformation retain their activity and their appetites, continue to grow, and acquire the rudiments of wings. Others, at this age, entirely lose their larva form, take no food, and remain at rest in a deathlike sleep.

16. At the end of the second period, insects again shed their skins, and come forth fully grown, and, with few exceptions, provided with wings. Thus they enter upon their last or adult state, wherein they no longer increase in size. This period usually lasts only a short time, for most insects die immediately after their eggs are laid.

Bees, wasps, and ants, however, which live in society and labor together for the common good of their communities, continue much longer in the adult state.

HEADS FOR COMPOSITION.

I. METAMORPHOSES OF INSECTS: to what are most insects subject? possible mistake owing to these changes.

II. MOTH OR BUTTERFLY: description of the caterpillar state - the chrysalis state - the fully developed insect.

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III. THE MOSQUITO: description of first state ("little fish-like animals," etc.) of the second state-steps in the final transformation.

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IV. THE GRASSHOPPER: as it comes from the egg-its moltings - how it grows into the "mature grasshopper."

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31.-The Builders.

en-tire', complete, perfect.

mass'ive, weighty, grand.

făsh'ion (-un), mold, give shape to. | reach, stretch, expanse.

1. All are architects of fate,

Working in these walls of time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.

2. Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.

3. For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;

Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build.

4. Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between ;

Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.

5. In the elder days of art,

Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part;

For the gods see everywhere.

6. Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen:
Make the house, where gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.

7. Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of time;
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.

8. Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.

9. Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.

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LANGUAGE STUDY.

I. What are the primitive words in "useless; " "strengthen;" unseen;""builder;" "boundless"?

Write the analysis of: support (portare); structure (struere); incomplete (plere); ascend (scandere).

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III. "The Builders" belongs to the class of didactic poems. It is an admonition to a noble life, poetically expressed in the image of the building of a house. Follow, throughout the poem, the unfoldings of the metaphor. Which line resembles these by Emerson? —

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome,

And groined the aisles of ancient Rome,
Wrought with a sad sincerity."

32.-A Tragedy of the Sea.

a-byss' (lit., bottomless), the deep. | merged, swallowed up.
liv'id, leaden-colored.
pall, black funeral-cloth.

PREPARATORY NOTES.

This powerful pen-picture is an extract from "Les Misérables," by Victor Hugo (1802-), the most illustrious of French novelists and poets. Hugo, in his novels, deals with great social questions, which he discusses with marvelous power, and in a rich but peculiar style.

1. A man overboard! What matters it? The ship does not stop. The wind is blowing. That dark ship must keep on her destined course. She passes away.

2. The man disappears, then re-appears; he plunges, and rises again to the surface; he calls, he stretches out his hands: they hear him not. The ship, staggering under the gale, is straining every rope. The sailors see the drowning man no longer: his miserable head is but a point in the vastness of the billows.

3. He hurls cries of despair into the depths. What a specter is that disappearing sail! He looks upon it with frenzy. It moves away; it grows dim; it diminishes. He was there but just now: he was one of the crew; he went and came upon the deck with the rest, he had his share of the air and of the sunlight, he was a living man. Now, what has become of him? He slipped, he fell; and it is finished.

4. He is in the monstrous deep. He has nothing

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