Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1877 — The Story of Bertram. [ARTICLE]

The Story of Bertram.

I MUST tell the school-boys the way in which Bertram got his education. His father was very poor, and the only way he had open to earn any money was to go to the fields and gather beetles, and siring them and cry them through the streets of Paris— ** Beetles, Beetles by the yard.” He found in searching through the fields other insects, and when the beetle season was over, he gathered rare insects, or fine butterflies, which he prepared so well that they were put into elegant gilt frames. He began to study, and he says the thing that attracted his attention was, that one dav when trying to catch a “ daddy long

a: s long time. Then he caught glow worm? and tried to find out how they produced their light. The ants, however, always to be found crawling under his feet, attracted his attention the moat. He found that they lived in a republic, without any rules, that they built large house* with several stories and galleries as passages from one room to another. That they had some rooms for storing provisions and others for nurseries for the sick, and nurseries for young ants. He found that the Red Ants fought with the Black Ants, and had done so tor agea. He tells ns about a battle he witnessed. The army of the Reds came early in the morning hoping to surprise their enemies; when about fifty feet from the bill occupied by the Blacks, they found the grourd covered by bits of straw, fruit, gram and worms. They fell upon this feast forgetting the enemies they had come to attack, ana were fallen upon by the Blacks, who had been lying in ambush. The result was many thousands slain and many prisoners of war. He tells us that the Blacks made these latter carry hack to the hill the bits of straw, fruit and worms which had served to bait the trap, and afterward retained them as slaves. I cannot tell you all the wonderful things that Bertram saw in the fields. But one day he sold some insects to a man who hud much taste for such things—a naturalist, and there he found books that gave him much information that was new to him even about the beetles and the ants. After some time he determined to tell the world what he had learned about the beetles, and this drew the attention of many learned men to him. Next he wrote a book about the glow-worms, and for this ’ King Charles X. made him Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Then he wrote about the ants, and he w.as appointed Professor in the Museum of Natural History, and afterward was elected a member ot the Academy of Science. All this for using his eyes. Try now, children, and use your eyes, for the world is full of strange things.— N. Y. Bchool Journal.