Charles. No, indeed! How, then, will you get their lands? Penn. I mean to buy their lands of them. Charles. Buy their lands of them! Why, man, you have already bought them of me. Penn. Yes, I know I have, and at a dear rate, too; but I did it only to get thy good will, not that I thought thou hadst any right to their lands? Charles. How, man! no right to their lands? Penn. No, friend Charles, no right at all. What right hast thou to their lands? Charles. Why, the right of discovery, to be sure; the right which the Pope and all Christian kings have agreed to give to one another. Penn. The right of discovery! A strange kind of right, indeed! Now, suppose, friend Charles, that some canoe loads of these Indians, crossing the sea, and discovering thine island of Great Britain, were to claim it as their own, and set it up for sale over thy head,-what wouldst thou think of it? Charles. Why-why-why-I must confess, I should think it a piece of great impudence in them. Penn. Well, then, how canst thou, a Christian, and a Christian prince, too, do that which thou so utterly condemnest in these people, whom thou callest savages? Yes, friend Charles; and suppose, again, that these Indians, on thy refusal to give up thy island of Great Britain, were to make war on thee, and, having weapons more destructive than thine, were to destroy many of thy subjects, and drive the rest away,—wouldst thou not think it horribly cruel? Charles. I must say that I should, friend William; how can I say otherwise? Penn. Well, then, how can I, who call myself a Christian, do what I should abhor even in a heathen? No, I will not do it. But I will buy the right of the proper owners, even of the Indians themselves. By doing this, I shall imitate God himself, in His justice and mercy, and thereby insure His blessing on my colony, if I should ever live to plant one in North America."Evenings at Home." LESSON XII.-THE CHAMELEON. The chameleon is a very curious creature, and though classed with lizards, it is yet very distinct from all the other animals belonging to that family. Its shape, it is true, somewhat resembles that of a lizard, but its skin is shagreened like that of a crocodile; and its tail, which is used by the animal to retain a firm hold of the branches which serve it for a habitation, is round, strong, and flexible, like that of some kinds of monkeys. It has no visible external ear, and its skull is raised in a very remarkable and pyramidal form. The skeleton of the chameleon is indeed as curious as its external form, for it has no breast-bone, properly so called, but the ribs are continued all round its body, so as each to form an entire circle. The lungs are very large, so much so, indeed, that when they are filled with air the body of the animal becomes nearly transparent; and this was supposed by Cuvier to be the cause of the curious changes of colour for which this animal is noted: in this, however, he was probably in error, as it appears to be due to two layers of differently coloured pigment in the skin, which change their position, the upper one covering or revealing the other, at the will of the animal. It is capable of so long an abstinence from food as to give rise to the fable of its living on air. Its eyes are very remarkable; not only from their being large and projecting, but from their being covered with skin, except a little circle in the centre, and from their motions being quite independent of each other. The animal, when in search of prey, hangs from the branch of a tree by its flexible tail, its colour being green, or brown, according as it is nearest the leaves, or the bark; and it rolls its strange-looking eyes, one backward and the other forward, watching in two opposite directions at the same time. As soon as an insect appears, both the extraordinary eyeballs are rolled round so as to bring them to bear on the devoted victim; and as soon as it arrives within reach, the tongue is projected with unerring precision, and returns to the mouth with the prey adhering to it, the tongue being covered with a sticky juice. This tongue is fleshy and cylindrical, except at the tip, and the animal, by a curious mechanism, can project it above six inches. It is, indeed, the only part of the chameleon's body that it can move with swiftness; all its other movements being languid and sluggish in the extreme. It was accurately described by Aristotle under the name of the little lion. The most common species is a native of Egypt, Barbary, and the south of Spain, and it has also been found in the East Indies.-Mrs. Loudon. LESSON XIII.-THE CARE OF GOD. Lo, the lilies of the field, How their leaves instruction yield! Every bush and tufted tree Warbles sweet philosophy: 66 Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow: "Say, with richer crimson glows Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow : "One there lives, whose guardian eye LESSON XIV.-ISLANDS. Besides the continents, many smaller tracts of land are scattered amidst the waters of the ocean: these are termed Islands. They number several thousands, and are of dimensions so various, that, whilst the largestAustralia-is little inferior in extent to the continent of Europe, multitudes of others are mere specks upon the surface of the sea, consisting but of a few acres of rugged rock or barren sand. Islands also differ in their position and origin. A large number stretch away from the shores of some continent, from which the nearest seem but slightly detached, appearing to have been separated from it originally by some great convulsion of nature. Among these are the British Isles, Newfoundland, and several of the islands on the Asiatic coast. Some rise solitary or in clusters amidst the ocean, from whose depths they appear to have been upheaved by volcanic agency. St. Helena is an example of a single island, and the Marquesas and Society Isles, of groups, thus situated far from any other land. Many of the islands of the Pacific are of coralline formation. Captain Basil Hall gives an interesting account of the way in which these formations take place, and of the method in which the coral insect works. "The examination of a coral reef, during the different stages of one tide, is particularly interesting. When the tide has left it for some time, it becomes dry, and appears to be a compact rock, exceedingly hard and rugged; but as the tide rises, and the waves begin to wash over it, the coral worms protrude themselves from holes which were before invisible. These animals are of a great variety of shapes and sizes, and in ́such prodigious numbers, that in a short time the whole surface of the rock appears to be alive and in motion. The most common of the worms at Loo-Choo is in the form of a star, with arms from four to six inches long, which are moved about with a rapid motion, in all directions, probably to catch food. Others are so sluggish, that they may be mistaken for pieces of the rock, and are generally of a dark colour, and from four to five inches long, and two or three round. When the coral is broken, about high-water, it is a solid hard stone; but if any part of it be detached at a spot which the tide reaches |