THE ARGONAUT, OR PAPER NAUTILUS.

ON the waves of the Medi

terranean Sea there may sometimes be seen a floating shell, which has been called the paper nautilus. It is not a proper nautilus, however, though, in respect to its thin and fine structure, it very much resembles this curious animal. Sometimes it goes by

the name of the argonaut. It is shaped something like a boat, as you will see by looking at the engraving, and is covered all over with delicate ribs. The creature that makes this boat is a mass of flesh, with eight long arms branching out, all covered over with suckers. Naturalists and other observing and thinking people have long wondered what was the use of the singular boat-shell attached to this creature. After trying in vain to discover the secret, it was pretty generally settled that it must be a real boat, and the creature was described as sitting in it, turning six of its arms over the sides as oars, and hoisting the other two flat, trowel-like arms as sails. One of the British poets, taking advantage of this fanciful description, has written the following lines upon the argonaut :

"Light as a flake of foam upon the wind,

Keel upward from the deep emerged a shell,
Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is filled;
Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose,
And moved at will along the yielding water.
The native pilot of this little bark

Put out a tier of oars on either side,

And mounted up and glided down the billows,
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,
And wander in the luxury of light."

But, after all that has been said, both in prose and in poetry, on this s bject, it is a fact that the argonaut never put out a tier of oars in order to row itself along. Neither does its shell glide on

the surface of the wave, nor sail before the wind; for the argonaut really swims in the water by waving its arms, and ejecting a jet of water from a tube with which its body is supplied for this very purpose. This jet of water being forcibly poured out, reacts upon the creature, and drives it on in the opposite direction with a strong rebound. By constant study and careful observation, naturalists have lately discovered this peculiar formation in the argonaut, and also, to their great delight, that its delicate shell is not a boat formed by the animal for its own idle pleasure, but one actually made by the female for the careful protection of her eggs. While the careless observer has hitherto been watching this creature with delight, supposing her at play, attentive observation has now discovered that she has always been occupied in a work of duty, protecting her beautiful shell, packed full of precious eggs, and has been brooding over them with the watchful and tender care that mothers only know. The flat, trowel-shaped arms that stand up, are the projections of the mantle which she uses in the construction of her boat. From their surface she first throws out the shell-making cement, and then uses them to smooth and mold it down to the shape she wants. Her other six arms she turns over the shell, as she sits upon its opening, in order that she may safely keep her eggs in their delicate, yet strong inclosure.

EVERY

A KANSAS FISH-STORY.

VERY country has its fish-stories. Kansas, though still in its infancy, is beginning to contribute its mite toward the universal fund of piscatory literature. An acquaintance of mine residing at Leavenworth, and who has often visited that part of the Territory which is watered by the Neosho River, tells me this story, the facts of which came under his observation: A man was fishing for perch in the Neosho.. A perch seized the hook. Just at the moment the fisherman was pulling the fellow out of the water, a huge cat-fish seized the perch, and both were captured. The cat-fish weighed twenty-five pounds! The gentleman who told me this story, was going to tell me another belonging to the same class ; but I begged him to wait a little while, until I had time to digest the one he had told already.

THE YANKEE PASS.

OLONEL HEINRICH STARING was

one of those German settlers in the Mohawk valley who played a conspicuous part in the border conflicts of the American Revolution. Like many of the leaders in those eventful times, he was wholly uneducated, and owed his elevation to the decision of his

character and the soundness of his common-sense. So highly were his natural talents appreciated, that at the conclusion of the war he was appointed the first judge in the Court of Common Pleas for Herkimer county; one of those happy districts where no lawyer had hitherto penetrated to perplex the course of justice with technicalities, and where the court decided upon the plain principles of commonsense, and their own views of right and wrong, without much regard to artificial rules. Many amusing anecdotes are related of Judge Staring. Among others, Mr. Stone, in the appendix to his valuable work, "The Life of Brant," tells the following ludicrous story:

While in the commission of the peace, the judge was old-fashioned enough to think that the laws ought not to remain a dead letter upon the statute-book; and being a good Christian, he was zealous in preventing a violation of the Sabbath. It happened that of a Sunday morning the judge saw a man, in the garb of a traveler, wending his way from the direction of the Gennessee country toward "the land of steady habits." The wayfarer was indeed a member of the universal Yankee nation, and one of the shrewdest of his caste, as will be seen in the sequel. The judge promptly called him to an account for breaking the Sabbath, and summarily imposed the penalty of the law-seventy-five cents. The Yankee pleaded the urgency of his business, and suggested that, as he had paid the penalty, he had an unquestionable right to travel during the remainder of the day. The magistrate saw nothing unreasonable in the request, and assented to the compromise. Jonathan then suggested that, to avoid any further difficulty in the premises, the judge ought to supply him with a receipt for the money, and a passport as the consideration. This request likewise appeared to be no more than reasonable, and

was granted by the worthy magistrate, who, not being able to write himself, requested the stranger to prepare the document for his signature, by the honest sign of the X. Nothing loath, Jonathan took the pen in hand, and might have written a veritable pass perhaps, had it not been for the sudden influence of an invisible agency. Under this influence, he wrote an order upon Messrs. James and Archibald Kane, the principal frontier merchants at Canajoharie, for goods and money to the amount of twenty pounds. The credit of the judge was of the best, and the draft was honored at sight. Some months afterward the judge took his wheat to the Messrs. Kanes for sale, as usual, when, to his surprise, a claim was preferred to the aforesaid amount of twenty pounds. The judge protested that he owed them not, having paid every dollar at their last annual settlement. The merchants persisted, and, as evidence that could not be gainsayed, produced the order. The moment the eyes of the judge rested upon the document, his countenance fell, as he exclaimed, "Dunder and blixum! itsh be dat blaguey Yankee pass!"

AN UNEXPECTED REUNION.

A BOSTON SHIP, while on her way homeward from a distant

clime, spoke an Eastern brig from the West Indies, in a critical condition. The captain of the brig was determined to stick to his vessel, yet he desired the commander of the ship to take off his wife, who was on board, and she, with great reluctance, parted from her husband, with the fear at her heart that she might never see him again. For the remainder of the voyage the wife was in a melancholy state of mind, constantly regretting that she ever left the side of her husband. In the mean time, however, a New York vessel had fallen in with the wreck, and had taken off the husband, who, in consequence of favorable winds, reached New York in advance of the vessel due at Boston. He watched with great anxiety for the approach of the ship, which had been retarded on her voyage by contrary winds. At length the vessel was telegraphed, and the husband hastened to the wharf. The wife stood upon the deck of the approaching ship, when suddenly her eyes fell upon her husband, and the unexpected sight so much affected her that she fainted away, but was soon recovered, and joined her husband, both parties exhibiting great joy and gratitude at their unexpected reunion.

UNCLE FRANK'S MONTHLY TABLE-TALK.

AT "WOODSIDE" AGAIN.