The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1875-08-27
Short Sermons by Jack-In-the- Pulpit.
ALL SORTS OF HAIRS.


ALL SORTS OF HAIRS.
l suppose you youngsters think that
all hairs are alike, except as to color; but
that is only because your eyes are not
very sharp. If your eyes were as sharp
as microscope, you could tell from the
tiniest slice of hair whether it grew on
a boy or quadruped, and what quad
ruped. A human hair, / am told, looks,
in that searching little instrument, like
hollow tube, quite transparent, and
marked with irregular lines around it.
On looking very closely, these lines are
seen to be the ends of separate surface
coats, or bark of the hair. Think of
your hairs having bark Inside the
thin, scaly covering is fibrous sub
stance, from the bulb where it begins, to
the point. The color of the hair is de-
cided by the color of the fluid that fills
this transparent tube. A cats hair
looks, under this prying instrument,
like the trunk of an old, rough palm
tree; while bats hair resembles flowers
of a trumpet shape, stuck into each other
to form chain. A bat from India has
the trumpet-shaped cups expanded very
wide, and notched on the edge. Hair
from the head of abee is pointed and set
with short hairs standing straight out
from the stem and the hairs of cater
pillar are like stout, horny rods, drawn
to point and set with spines on each
side.
This is very queer ; but there's an
other thing about it. If the hairs of
sheep, and other animals whose hair is
used in manufactures, had not rough
scales which clasp and mat together,
they could not be made into telling.
That is what makes broadcloth and
other wooden cloth so firm and strong.
DUMB DOGS.
What's the use of dog that can't
bark? 1t seems that on the Guinea
Coast there is race of dogs that are alb
solutely dumb. The bird that told me
does not know whether or not they are
good watch-dogs. Guesses not. Per-
haps they don't bark because they've
nothing to watch! / heard sailor say
that once few dogs of the barking kind
were left on the desert island of Juan
Fernandez. Thirty-three years after
ward, when the original dogs were dead,
and their descendants had all grown
VIII, uOJ Ouc VI Iue VIII uOSS could
bark. Then some of them were taken
away to another country by sailors, and
behold after time they began to gain
their voices, and bark like common dogs.
This sounds like a hard story, and I'll
not say yea or nay to it, though it was
told to me as truth that had been en-
dorsed by Mr.. Darwin.
DOGS THAT GO "A-CRABBING."
Jack hears all sorts of queer things.
Listen to this true story At low tide,
on the coast of Terra del Fuego land
perhaps on some other coasts, crabs
hide themselves under the loose stones
that are scattered thickly over the beach.
Here they lie carelessly, not dreaming OF
danger, waiting for high tide. In the
meantime the dogs come looking foi
their dinners. With one fore-paw they
turn over a stone, and with the Other
knock out the astonished crab. The
dogs have to be quick about it, too, fol
if the crab has time to think, he grasps
the stone so closely with his claws that
the dog cannot get him off, without
greater trouble than the dinner would be
worth. st. Nicholas for SeDte11ber.