What particular insult did they put upon him?

How did he die?

What became of his murderers?

NATURAL HISTORY.

SNAKES.

THERE are many different kinds of snakes; nearly two hundred. In England, however, but few of these kinds are known. Some of these snakes are poisonous, but the greater part of them are not. The common snake which we find in this country, is quite harmless. The viper, or adder, is poisonous. The poison of a snake is contained in a large hollow tooth or fang, and when the creature bites, this poison is squeezed into the wound, and often produces very serious consequences. Mr. Bingley says, that the most esteemed remedy is the common salad oil thoroughly rubbed on the wounded part. The bite of the English viper is said not to be near so dangerous as that in foreign ones. It produces, however, a very painful and troublesome swelling.

THE GREAT BOA.

THERE is a terrible sort of snake called the Boa, which lives chiefly in Africa, India, and South America. It has no poison, but it squeezes its prey to death, by twisting its enormous folds round the body of the poor victim. This serpent is sometimes as much as thirty or forty feet long, and as thick as a large man's body. It will very frequently kill deer, or a goat, and sometimes even an ox, or a buffalo. It squeezes them till it breaks their bones, and then swallows them. Its throat stretches out in a surprising manner to enable it to swallow animals so much larger than itself. It goes a very long

time without food, and then takes these immense meals; but this gluttonous proceeding is often its own death; for it swallows goats and other animals with their horns on, which must prove dangerous from their hardness and sharpness, even if the quantity swallowed was not enough to kill them.

We read of a soldier, and an Indian, in America, going out together to shoot wild-fowl; and the Indian sat down on one of these great creatures, thinking that it was the trunk of a tree. The monster began to move, and the soldier shot it through the head; but he found that the Indian was dead too, from the fright. This creature was

thirty-six feet long.

There is an account, too, of a person who saw one of these enormous serpents seize upon a buffalo. He says that the Boa was watching for its prey, and a buffalo was the first animal that appeared. The serpent darted upon the affrighted beast, and instantly began to wrap round him his twisting folds; and at every twist the bones of the buffalo were heard to crack like the report of a gun; and at length all

the bones were crushed to pieces. When these creatures have swallowed their enormous meal, they lie in a sort of sleepy state, and, as we may suppose, do not desire to eat again till a long time; suffering, as gluttons often do, from stuffing themselves so outrageously. These creatures are sometimes shown alive in England in collections of wild beasts.

THOMAS SHEPHERD.
(Continued from p. 93.)

I said that Thomas Shepherd was so altered since he went to school, that he did not look like the same lad. There was not a boy in the school that now looked more neat or more tidy than Thomas. He took a pleasure in having his hands and face well washed and his hair was cut short, and looked always well brushed and clean. Instead of being a ragged dirty boy, and looking as if he belonged to nobody, he now had such a creditable appearance, that his mother had quite a pleaSure in looking at him; and she took

great pains to have his clothes as whole and as creditable as any boy in his station of life. The father was as glad to

see Tom's improvement as the mother was, and he now took good care of the money that he earned that he might be able to buy a new hat for his boy, or a pair of shoes, or any thing that might make him comfortable, and enable him to go to school in as creditable a manner as the rest of his schoolfellows.

There seems, indeed, now to be a great difference in the appearance, and in the ways of Tom's father and mother; and they take a great pleasure in having their boy read to them in an evening after school hours, and they have learned a great deal of good from what Tom has read to them out of his books. They are both trying to learn to read, themselves, and they are getting on very well. As the father is grown so steady and industrious he has always plenty of work, and, when he has earned his money, he never thinks of being so foolish as to throw any of it away at the ale-house; and his wife now has the house so clean