This fancy for making pets of reptiles is certainly not very common, and meets with little sympathy; so it is all the pleasanter to find a poet taking the part of these creatures, and drawing a moral from them too:-

"You may love a screaming owl, And if you can, the unwieldy toad That crawls from his secure abode within the mossy garden wall When evening dews begin to fall. Oh, mark the beauty of his eye : What wonders in that circle lie! So clear, so bright, our fathers said He wears a jewel in his head! And when upon some showery day, Into a path or public way, A frog leaps out from bordering grass, Startling the timid as they pass, Do you observe him, and endeavour To take the intruder into favour; Learning from him to find a reason For a light heart in a dull season."

Far as my experience goes, the pleasure of petting and feeding the bees has been all I got from them! No doubt there is profit as well as pleasure to be derived from a well-managed apiary; but although it is generally true that "It's a' for the hinney we cherish the bee."

I think there is much interest and amusement to be derived from watching the little busy creatures at work, and making acquaintance as it were with them.* In general, they do not object to any one going quietly up to the hive, and sitting by them, to observe what they are doing; they seem universally good-tempered at swarming time, and also when being fed; but no doubt bees, like ourselves, have fits of bad temper, without any reasonable cause that we can discover, and it is prudent to keep out of the way at such times. This state of feeling is generally made known by one bee flying round the person with a shrill buzz, quite different from the usual hum; sometimes the little scold is pacified if the intruder goes quietly off, but at other times it will follow, flying round and round with evident intentions of stinging. I am not quite sure whether an attack of this seemingly capricious kind is made by a bee in a bad humour, solely for its own gratification, or whether it has been set to act as guard, and is merely doing its duty. Give it the benefit of the doubt, and do not strike at it, but just be off quietly and quickly. It is not easy to avoid ascribing human feelings to these insects after one has been watching their ways; it seems so natural to suppose that they recognise individuals that one is apt to accuse them of ingratitude when they sting the hand that is feeding them, though this they seldom do; indeed, it may fairly be surmised that the busier the bees are, the better tempered are they, and the less disposed to notice or be annoyed by a quiet spectator - a hint this to all idle ones. Something to do, and doing it heartily, is a grand preservative against ill-humour in old and young.

* The following quaint account of the profit to be derived from bees is found in a note in Bonner's "New Plan for Increasing the Number of Bee-Hives in Scotland," published in 1795 : - " The author's father, James Bonner, was, like himself, fond of rearing bees, and often had a dozen of hives at a time in his garden. He lived above fifty years in the married state, and had twelve children, of whom the author is the youngest alive. He frequently boasted that, in good seasons, he made as much money by his bees as nearly to purchase oatmeal sufficient to serve his numerous family for the whole year. He purchased a large quarto Bible with the wax produced in one year from his hives, which served as a family book ever after; and his house was always well supplied with honey, and a kind of weak mead, which served for drink at all seasons of the year."

We are getting lower down in the scale of pets when we come to those who merely recognise the hand that feeds them, without being able to shew or feel personal attachment; even this degree of tameness, however, has its charm. But what can be said for a still lower scale of animal life, the zoophytes, and other inhabitants of our drawing-room aquariums ? Not the most vivid imagination can suppose a sea-anemone devotedly attached to its keeper, or can fancy any sort of individual character about these animals at all; and although the crabs are most amusing, and well worthy of the records of Lewes, Harper, and others, they belong to a higher order of being, and must not be insulted by being placed alongside of serpulae and sea-anemones. The mania for drawing-room aquariums is passing away, a proof that it was neither for scientific purposes nor for the pleasure of watching the habits of the creatures confined therein, that they were set up; but to those who have a taste for either of these pursuits, allied as they are, an aquarium is a source of considerable interest and amusement.

I have avoided all mention of dogs as pets in this somewhat rambling record; the truth is, that these animals are felt to be rather companions than mere pets, at least they may be made so, and I appeal to any one who is a genuine lover of dogs whether I am not right in saying that there is as much difference between a dog who has been made a companion of, and one who has not, as between a child whose heart and mind have been cultivated and one of the sad stray waifs who have never had a kind word spoken to them. Start not, reader, nor think that for one moment I would place a dog, or any animal, in comparison with a human being; but neither am I at all disposed to give in to the somewhat unjust outcry, that a love for pet-animals hardens the heart against our fellow-creatures. On the contrary, it is generally found that those who have this love of, and kindness towards animals, are also those to whom we may look with confidence for all tenderness and love to the weak, the sick, the sorrowful, and the young among their fellow-creatures. It was the advice of one of the most kindly Christian men that ever worked among our "lapsed masses," the Rev. Daniel Wilkie, to train all boys to love pets, it was such a great preventive against the thoughtless cruelty and tyranny so apt to be exercised by them towards all defenceless beings; and if to this it be replied, that there are few things more to be pitied than a child's pet animal, I still say, and will uphold, that it is the loving them, the petting them, in short, that is advised, and that has the beneficial effect mentioned; not the neglecting or tormenting them, which is too often called "keeping pets." So let all encouragement be given to "Likings fresh and innocent, That store the mind, the memory feed, And prompt to many a gentle deed."