m AND 3 THE MENAGERIE. 2¥S & I? If EMBELLISHED WITH CUTS. PROVIDENCE : GEO. P. DANIELS. 1843. ■caps THE IDLE BOY; AND THE MENAGERIE. HE IDLE BOY; AND mm snfflssiic&lBiBiiJBo EMBELLISHED WITH CUTS. PROVIDENCE : PUBLISHED BY GEO. P. DANIELS. 1843 ) THE IDLE BOY. Frederic was nine years of age, and a boy of good abilities ; but he was very indolent, and would rather trifle away his time, than attend to his necessary av- ocations. Great disadvantages result from an idle disposition, as in the case of Fred- eric. His papa one day told him, and his brothers, Frank and George, that if "they had repeated all their lessons cor- rectly, and written their copies by twelve o'clock, they should take a ride with him to the next town, to see a collection of wild beasts. They were highly delight- ed with their father's proposition, and re- solved, at the moment, to lose no time in performing their allotted tasks. a 3 6 THE IDLE BOY, their books and sat down, seemingly in- tent upon learning them in good earnest. Frank and George were industrious boys, and their attention, when once fixed, was not easily diverted from its object. They recollected that it wanted only two hours till twelve o'clock, and determined to try to accomplish all that their father had given them to do, in order to be ready the moment the carriage, came to the door. Frederic followed their example for about ten minutes, but he then began to loll about, and to play with his pen and his pencil-case, and the keys of his desk, and whatever else happened to be in his way, instead of attending to what he ought, so that for the first hour nothing was done. The clock now struck eleven. THE IDLE BOY. ■111 iiiiiiii m vt\ I 1 Ipffra 111 llUllilUIIIIIll ' George w& & Fretieric. " Have you learnt your lessons, so as to be ready to repeat them to papa, Fred- eric ?" said George. " Oh no, that I have not !" replied Frederic ; " I began learning this tire- some hie, hcec, hoc, an hour ago, and I cannot half say it. Oh, what a beautiful butterfly ! — look, George !" — so saying, the idle boy threw down his Eton gram- mar, and jumped out of the open window in a moment. He chased the painted a 4 8 ... # THE IDLE BOY. wanderer from flower to flower ; tor now it hovered over the bed of roses, and then, lightly flitting from shrub to shrub, set- tled on an almond blossom, and at length, being as fond of novelty as Frederic himself, quickly changed its station, and ighted on the gravel walk. From the ai den it winged its way to the fields be- Frederic aiad the IButtterfly* md it, and its young pursuer, totally re- rdless of his father's kind proposition THE IDLE BOY. 9 still followed it. At last, however, weary of the chase, he relinquished it as fruit- less, and returned to the house. Judge of his surprise-and vexation, when he found that it was twenty minutes after twelve, and that his father and brothers had just set off. There lay the grammar, as he had left it, on the carpet, whilst George's was put carefully by ; there lay his copy book untouched on the table, whilst Frank's copy was neatly written ; and there was his slate, with the figures only partially made, on the desk beside it ; whilst his brothers had completed theirs, and put up their slates in their proper places. Beneath the unfinished sums Frederic's father had written these lines, evidently intended for his perusal : " George and Frank will accompany me to the menagerie, as they have been attentive and industrious ; but you have been an idle boy, and do not deserve such an indulgence. You must therefore re- main at home ; and may you learn, from A § 10 THE IDLE BOT, . | this disappointment ; to attend more stead- ily to your lessons during the time allot- ted to the purpose ; and also that idle people cannot be truly happy. It may in- deed seem pleasanter for the time to run after butterflies, than to acquire useful and necessary information ; but disappointment and vexation will always follow the hours so un profitably wasted. "Youth is the time for storing the mind with knowledge : and it ought to be the habitual desire of young people to make the best use of every moment, in- stead of trifling away hour after hour in indolence." / THE MENAGERIE. W hen George and Prank and their fa- ther reached the town, they saw two or three large carriages painted of a yellow- ish color : and there was a large picture, hoisted between two poles, upon one of them, representing a tiger and a lion. A little flight of steps led to a landing place or gallery, that seemed to form an entrance to the enclosure, and this enclosure their father told them was the menagerie. No sooner had they entered it, than they were struck with the loud roaring noises made bv the various animals it contained, which, together with the din in the street outside, for it was a holiday, a^iost be- wildered them. In a short time, however, a 6 1*2 THE MENAGEKfE. A they became accustomed to it, and were able to walk quietly round the enclosure, p,ud examine the animals at their leisure, Tlie Elephant. il Oh, papa," said Frank, " here is an phant ! — how sagacious he looks ! May [ give him an apple, to see hjm put it iri- his mouth with his trunk?" " You :;y," replied Frank's father. Frank did Si . and was highly delighted with seeing he animal take up the apple in a moment with the end of his trunk or proboscis, H M d put it into his mouth. f the menagerie. 13 m u Elephants," said Mr. L., il are mostly brought from Ceylon, a large island near Asia ; but they also inhabit many coun- tries of Africa, where they live upon herbs and fruit, and the tender parts of shrubs, or the grain of the bamboo. The ele- phant always takes his food by means of his trunk, as you have seen this do. If he wants to eat, he puts down his trunk, tears up the grass or bamboos, and makes bundles of them, which he carries to his mouth, When he wants to drink, he dips the end of his trunk in water, and thus conveys a sufficient quantity of wa- ter to his mouth. ^He can lift a great weight with it; and if your little sister Caroline were put in his cage, and his keeper told him to place her on his back, he would do so in a moment." But, papa/' said Frank, " of what use are those two great horns which the ele- phant has on each side of his mouth ?' 5 ) 14 THK MENAGERIE. ~ \ " Those horns, as you term them," re- plied Mr. L. " are his tusks, and form what is usually called ivory."; Tlie Tig-er. The boys now went to the next di vis- ion of the menagerie, which contained a tiger. " This animal, 5 ' said their father, is a native of the East Indies, where it is a tyrant of the forests, its dreadful roar carrying terror and destruction wherever it is heard. Yonder is a lion, with his long shaggy mane. The lion is a native of the burning plains of Africa. His ma- jestic deportment, and his superiority over Tlie Liion* most other animals, have obtained for him the title of the King of Beasts. He is bold and intrepid, but his natural tem- per is not cruel, and he can be more easily tamed than the tiger. There is a polar bear. The polar bear is found among the icy mountains, in the countries north of Europe ; those countries are called the polar regions. Here is a lynx, with its long ears ; the lynx gains its subsistence by devouring other animals, which it will pursue to the very tops of trees. The r skin of this animal changes its color ac cording to the season and climate. There is a leopard with its spotted skin. Those beautiful spots are composed of THE MENAGERIE . 17 four or five black dots arranged in a cir- cle, and not imperfectly representing the vestige left by the animal's foot upon the sand. Beside the leopard is a kangaroo/ 7 u And what is that animal next to the kangaroo, papa," said George. Tine Zebra* " That is a Zebra," said Mr, L. ; " it is 18 THE MENAGERIE. a native of Africa. When you reach home, I will lend you a work on Natural Histo- ry, in which you may read an interesting account of all the animals you have seen to-day. There you will find some that are remarkable for their strength and intrepidity ; others for their fierceness and cruelty ; and others for their remark- able sagacity, as in the case of the ele- phant. You may acquire a deal of infor- mation, from the same work, respecting their modes and habits of life also ; and you will find that some possess a very su- perior degree of instinct to what others do. God has given to every created thing the capacity best calculated for its enjoy- ment. Upon man he has bestowed rea- son; to the brute creation he has given instinct, which supplies its place, and serves instead of knowledge, experience, and understanding, the concomitants of the former." "I wish papa," said Frank, as he seat- ed himself in the carriage by the side of THE MENAGERIE. 19 his father, " that poor Frederic had been with us to-day. How delighted he would have been to see the elephant pick up a sixpence, and put it in that little box ?" I am sorry, my dear, that your broth- er lost the pleasure of acoompanying us, in consequence of his own indolence and inattention," said Mr. L. ; "but I hope he will be roused to greater exertions in future, and that he will endeavor to imi- tate your example by attending to his les- sons at the proper time, in order to enjoy relaxation, which will be rendered doubly delightful by two or three hours of pre- vious industry." After reading in the work which his father lent him, an account of each ani- mal he had seen during his visit to the Menagerie, George found an interesting part which described the whale. This was more interesting to him, because he lived in the United States. From thence a large number of men annually sail out, for the purpose of taking whales from the > 20 THE MENAGERIB, seas in which they live. When taken they are cut to pieces, and from' their car- casses is extracted the article we use in our lamps, which is called Lamp Oil. — For the benefit of other little readers, the account may be found on the next page. 1 WHALES. Now, little boys and girls, I will tell you some fine stories about catching whales. Here is the picture of one, an hundred feet long, or as long as the mast of a ship, and as big round as a haystack. It will weigh one hundred tons, or as much as thirty yoke of oxen can draw on level ground. His mouth is thirty feet long, and when open it is large enough to drive in a horse and gig, 22 THE WHALE. Bat all whales are not so large. Some of them are not more than twenty feet long. It may be well for you to know the different kinds of whales, where they live, how they are caught, &c, so I will tell you. The Beaked Whale is the smallest kind. It is said to be only twenty feet long, and generally lives off the coast of Norway. The Finner is forty or fifty feeti n length. It is called the Finner, because he has a fin on his back, which no other kind of whale has. This kind also lives in the Northern Atlantic Ocean. The Broad-nosed whale, which is found near the coast of Ireland, Scotland and Norway, is from fifty to eighty feet long ; but as it gives little oil, this kind of whale is not much sought for. But the Razor Back is the largest of the whale tribe, and probably the largest and most powerful of all animals God has made. Thirty yoke of stout oxen would THE WHALE. 23 hardly draw one gf these whales on level ground, even if it were swung on wheels. The Spermaceti is another kind of whale. From this, the beautiful candles you sometimes see, are made. This kind of whale is found principally in the South- ern Pacific Ocean. Large numbers of them are every year killed by whaling fishermen, who go out in vessels from Nantucket, New-Bedford and other places. Spermaceti Whales go in droves, like herds of cattle. Several hundred of them are sometimes found together. j 6 CHJSSilSSS'S BOOKS, Containing instructive and interesting Stories, and illustrated with beautiful engravings, Published and for sale, wholesale and retail, by ■oft -oil >9 So- ■Q- PRICE 6] CENTS. )C * sir©- Off ■o- 1. The Two Yellow-Birds. 2. James and Charles; and other Tales for S c> Children. Jgf^ 3. Mamma's Lessons for her little Boys and j ; ■■" : Girls. Chiefly in words of one syllable.- ||«>- 4. Buy s Own Book of Amusement and In- jg^ ft 21 struction. 5. Buy's and Girl's Book of Sports. G. The Ninepenny-Piece; arid the Little Bas- f 'ket Mak^r. : . 7. The idle Boy; and the Menagerie. |h S. Girl's Own Book of Amusing and Instruc- K> tive Stories. 9. Orphan Rachel ; or> Fruits of Persever- ance. 10. The Two Cousins; and the Water-Cress S Girl. I 11. The Morning Walk; with other Stories for | Girls and Boys. 12. The Flower Basket; or, Poetry for Chil- jsp- dren.