Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 Part 11

Square 4to, about 300 pages each, beautifully printed on Tinted Paper, embellished with many Ill.u.s.trations, bound in Cloth, $1.50 per volume.

The Children's Picture-Book of Sagacity of Animals.

With Sixty Ill.u.s.trations by HARRISON WEIR.

The Children's Bible Picture-Book.

With Eighty Ill.u.s.trations, from Designs by STEINLE, OVERBECK, VEIT, SCHNORR, &c.

The Children's Picture Fable-Book.

Containing One Hundred and Sixty Fables. With Sixty Ill.u.s.trations by HARRISON WEIR.

The Children's Picture-Book of Birds.

With Sixty-one Ill.u.s.trations by W. HARVEY.

The Children's Picture-Book of Quadrupeds and other Mammalia.

With Sixty-one Ill.u.s.trations by W. HARVEY.

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

_Sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price._

OUR CHILDREN'S SONGS.

Our Children's Songs. Ill.u.s.trated. 8vo, Ornamental Cover, $1.00.

This is a large collection of songs for the nursery, for childhood, for boys and for girls, and sacred songs for all. The range of subjects is a wide one, and the book is handsomely ill.u.s.trated.--_Philadelphia Ledger._

Songs for the nursery, songs for childhood, for girlhood, boyhood, and sacred songs--the whole melody of childhood and youth bound in one cover. Full of lovely pictures; sweet mother and baby faces; charming bits of scenery, and the dear old Bible story-telling pictures.--_Churchman_, N. Y.

The best compilation of songs for the Children that we have ever seen.--_New Bedford Mercury._

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

HARPER & BROTHERS _will send the above work by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price_.

Harper's New and Enlarged Catalogue,

With a COMPLETE a.n.a.lYTICAL INDEX, and a VISITORS' GUIDE TO THEIR ESTABLISHMENT,

Sent by mail on receipt of Nine Cents.

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE, N. Y.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Of these two objects the first is not a hand, and the second is not a windmill. What are they?

[Ill.u.s.tration]

ANOTHER SQUARE PUZZLE.

The puzzle is to draw two squares in the positions shown by the diagram, without lifting the pencil from the paper, or crossing one line with another.

Let our little readers exercise their ingenuity over this apparently simple problem.

HOW TO MAKE A CUCUIUS.

BY FRANK BELLEW.

You would like to be able to mate a cucuius, would you not? We will tell you. But perhaps you would like to know what, in the name of Memnon, a cucuius is? Well, we will tell you that too.

A cucuius, or cucuij, is a kind of beetle, about three inches long, which emits a very brilliant light from two large protuberances in its head, which look like its eyes. It is called the lantern-fly in English, and lives in South America. The light it gives is so bright that you can read a book by it. The natives employ them in place of candles to illuminate their rooms while performing their domestic work. We have seen one exhibited in a room where eight gas-burners were in full blaze, and yet its two great demoniac-looking eyes (or what appeared to be eyes) shone more brightly than the most brilliant of precious stones--with an intensity, it will be no exaggeration to say, equal to the electric light. The effect was perfectly startling, and rather appalling.

To give light, however, is not the only good quality this wonderful insect possesses: it is a deadly enemy to gnats, by which the natives of the Spanish West Indies are greatly annoyed. When they wish to rid themselves of these pests they procure two or three of the cucuiuii, and let them loose in the room, when they soon make short work of the enemy.

The method of catching the cucuius adopted by the natives is to repair to some open piece of land with a flaming fire-brand, which they wave vigorously backward and forward, calling out all the time, "Cucuie, cucuie, cucuie." This attracts the insects to them, when they are easily captured with a small net. What a blessing these cucuiuii would be to us be-bitten inhabitants of the United States if Mr. Cucuius would only treat our mosquitoes with the vigor that he does the gnats of the tropics!

In South America they are used as ornaments for the hair and dresses of the ladies; and on certain festivals young people gallop through the streets on horseback, brilliantly illuminated, horse and rider, with these insects, secured in little nets, or cages made of fine twigs woven together. The effect is marvellous, producing in the dark evening the appearance of a large moving body of light. "Many wanton, wild fellowes," as an old writer describes them, rub their faces with the flesh of a killed cucuius, as boys with us sometimes do with phosphorus, to frighten or amuse their friends.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Cucuius, or Lantern-Fly.]