The buffaloes were drawn together in the form of a crescent; their eyes glared fiercely, and as they advanced in a series of short runs, stamping with their hoofs, and angrily lashing their tails, their horns would come together with a clanging, clattering crash, and they would paw the sand, snort and toss their heads, and behave in the most extraordinary manner.

Scorpions are common in hot countries: they are very bold and watchful: when any thing approaches, they erect their tails, and stand ready to inflict the direful sting.

Then in the yard quite still they stand, Swing-ing their la-zy tails, Where Ann and Su-san are at hand With stools and milk-ing pails I love to see the white milk flow, And in the pail froth up; And Ann, who is so kind, I know, Will let me fill my cup.

Several expeditions were sent against him, but he always succeeded in bribing the commanders, who, on their return to Constantinople, made such representations that Kutchuk Ali, instead of being punished, received one dignity after another, until finally he attained the rank of a Pasha of two tails.

III TAILS The secrets of Nature often play like an iridescence on the surface, and escape the eye of her worshipper because it is stopped with a microscope.

But of beasts that graze and browse, a large number have turned their tails rather to a use which throws a pathetic light on misery of which we have little experience.

" [Illustration: THERE ARE SOME ECCENTRICS, SUCH AS JENNY WREN, WHICH HAVE DESPISED THEIR TAILS.

Besides ground birds, like the quail, there are some eccentrics, such as Jenny wren, which have despised their tails, and there are specialists also which require them for other purposes than flying.

It is vain to object that there can be no proper comparison between tails and hats because the woman chooses her own hat while the bird has to wear what Nature has given it.

There is a stylish way of carrying a tail and a slovenly way, and there are coquettish arts for the display of recherche tails.

How significant it is that among the emblems of royalty in the East the three chiefest are an umbrella-bearer, two men who stand behind and swing great punkahs modelled on the elephant's ear, and two others carrying yak's tails wherewith to scare the flies from the royal person!

The pigeons also came together in hundreds in an open space under the shade of a noble peepul tree, where grain was thrown out for them at three o'clock every day; and among them were many chattering sparrows and not a few green parrots, which walked quaintly among the bustling pigeons, their long tails moving from side to side like the pointer of the scale on which the Bunia weighed his rupees.

The lighter coloured ones had black muzzles, ears, and tails.

Their tails were carried more gaily than would be permitted by a modern judge of the breed.

It is regretted by some of the admirers of these dogs that custom has ordained that their tails should be docked.

As portrayed in early pictures of the King Charles and the Blenheim varieties, the tails are long, well flagged, and inclined to curve gracefully over the back, and in none of the pictures of the supposed ancestors of our present Toy Spanielseven so recent as those painted by Sir Edwin Landseerdo we find an absence of the long tail.

The study of canine history receives frequent enlightenment from the study of the growth of commercial intercourse between nations, and the trend of events would lead one to the belief that the Pug had its origin in China, particularly in view of the fact that it is with that country that most of the blunt-nosed toy dogs, with tails curled over their backs, are associated.

On hearing this alarming presentiment of their early death, all four little girls raised a hideous cry, and, burying their faces in their mother's lap simultaneously, screamed until the eight flaxen tails vibrated; Mrs. Kenwigs meanwhile clasping them alternately to her bosom, with attitudes expressive of distraction.

The proprietor, knowing she had three sisters, each with two flaxen tails, and all good for sixpence apiece a month at least, promptly deserted an old gentleman whom he had just lathered for shaving, and waited on the young lady himself.

And this wonderful domestic scene,this family reconciliation was brought about by Miss Morleena, eldest of the four little Kenwigses, with the flaxen tails!

It fell on the ground and burnt all the little snakes' tails off.

The snake-queen did her best to comfort them, but the stumps of the little princes' tails ached so dreadfully that it was ever so long before the snake-queen could put them off to sleep.

In the course of time the little snake-princes grew up, but their tails never grew again.

And one day they asked the snake-queen how it was that their tails had been broken off.

And behind them galloped all the little calves with their heels in the air and their tails stuck out straight behind them.