I am not sure that these extra leaflets always bring good luck to the one who finds them, but I can affirm from actual experience with the young folks that the search and the discovery of clover with the extra leaflets brings much pleasure.

Britton & Brown's "Illustrated Flora " states of red clover, "Leaflets commonly 3, sometimes 4 to 11." And of white clover, "Leaflets sometimes 4 to 9."

I will send an interesting book to the ST. NICHOLAS reader from whom I first receive clover of either variety with leaflets more than

seven.

Press and dry the leaflets thoroughly between sheets of blotting paper or newspaper. Then mail in firm package between sheets of cardboard or hard paper. If possible, send full series above seven.

OBSERVATIONS REGARDING WOODCHUCKS.

RIDGEFIELD, CONN.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: The woodchuck is the most numerous wild animal in this part of New England and is found in most fields and is not considered by the farmer a desirable tenant.

Ever since I have been old enough to go out in the

fields, I have often seen the little mounds of earth thrown up by the woodchuck in making his home. He generally makes it by the fence, but sometimes makes it in the open fields, if there is tall grass or tall grain which is a protection for him. He makes two doors to his house so that he can go in and out either way.

He is a vegetarian and is quite dainty in choosing his food. Very early in the morning or late in the afternoon, he can be seen sitting upright picking out the clover..

When alarmed he quickly runs to a place of safety. When near his home he is more brave, and often can be

seen with his children playing near the doorway. If he is located near a cultivated field or garden he will help himself to the vegetables.

Last summer we discovered the tops disappearing

was too clever to be caught. He abandoned his home and went to a place of greater safety.

After living all summer he gets very fat, and when the cold weather and frost come, he goes in his home and takes a long nap. When spring comes, he comes out lean and hungry, wearing his old coat, and he looks like a tramp.

The skunk is a lazy fellow, and not caring to build a house of his own he often is found living in the wood

chuck's burrow. Whether he is taken as a boarder in

the family or has found a vacant house, I don't know, but in trapping they are as apt to catch a skunk as a woodchuck. Yours very truly, MARY SEYMOUR.

Woodchucks commence their winter "sleep" (hibernation) in autumn. Will our readers please report the latest date in the autumn when they see one moving about? In digging for woodchucks, sometimes a skunk instead is found.

Has anyone known of a skunk and a woodchuck using the same burrow?

sweet, and it is always a

little sad, too. We are

glad to get home, we are glad to meet our companions at school and to begin our studies; but we cannot forget those sweet dreamy days by the water or among the hills, when it was joy to row and fish and camp, or even to stretch out in the shade, or to lie in the grass and watch the hawks skim like black specks across the sky. In the busy schoolroom, sometimes, when the problems are hard, we remember these things. Other summers will come, but they seem a long way off, and then they will never be quite that same summer, which grows sweeter now with every day that takes it farther back into the hallowed past. It is no harm, then, to close one's eyes just for a little to see again in fancy the yellow butterflies dancing down the fields. The problems will be easier, presently, and the busy schoolroom and the recitation will

home coming is

have a new charm after a little journey into memory's land of Pleasant Things.

The selection of the prize poems was very hard this time. There is not a poem published this month that does not deserve a prize, and their authors who have not already obtained such reward will do so, sooner or later, if they continue to do such excellent work.

"It seems to me that most adventures have bears in them," says one of our prose contributors in opening his story. Certainly this is true if we may judge by the League stories. Nearly all our "adventure stories were about bearsreal bears, make-believe bears, imaginary bears-a regular menagerie of bears. Most of the true bear stories, whether of the real or make-believe kind, were good and interesting, and we have selected a good many of them for publication. But those imaginary bearsbears constructed in the imagination, we meanthey were usually too big and too fierce, and when the boy of ten or even twelve bravely stepped out of the tent to meet the fierce beast and "taking careful aim, sent the unerring bullet straight to the monster's heart," the editor hesitated and-laid the contribution in the wrong pile. Boys and bears like that seem to

have gone out of fashion-at least in St. Nicholas. Perhaps they still flourish in the "Nickel Libraries "the editor does n't know. If they do, then they have been corralled at last in the only place where they ever had any real good times and where they still properly belong.

66 THE PICNIC PARTY." BY ALLANSON L. SCHENK, AGE 13. PRIZE WINNERS, JUNE COMPETITION. In making the awards, contributors' ages are considered.

Verse. Cash Prize, Nannie Clark Barr (age 15), 319 Franklin St., Keokuk, Ia.

Gold badges, Grace Leslie Wilson (age 17), care of Dr. E. G. Ladd, Rollo, Mo., and Gladys Cecelia Edgerly (age 9), 1467 Rhode Island Ave., Washington, D. C.

Silver Badges, Emmeline Bradshaw (age 15), Lansdown House, Merrow, Guildford, Surrey, England; Lois Treadwell (age 12), 342 Mill St., Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and E. Babette Deutsch (age 10), 124 East 78th St., N. Y. City.

Prose. Frances J. Shriver (age 16), Belmont Place, New Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y., and Alice H. Gregg (age 13), Mars Bluff, Florence Co., S. C.

Silver badges, Jessie Tait (age 15), 228 Adams St., Memphis, Tenn.; Evelyn Hollister (age 13), Woodburn Crescent, E. Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, O., and Eleanor Stinchcomb (age 9), 96 Fountain St., Grand Rapids, Mich.

Drawing. Cash prize, Emily W. Browne (age 16), 529 Newbury St., Boston, Mass.

Gold badges, Josephine Holloway (age 14), Kenilworth, Ill., and Marjorie Relyea (age 12), New Rochelle, N. Y.

Silver badges, Mary Argall Arthur (age 14), 385 Jefferson Ave., Brooklyn,

Silver badges, Allanson L. Schenk (age 13), 61 Kavanaugh Pl., Wauwatosa, Wis., and Elizabeth A. Cutler (age 16), 8 Broadway, Bangor, Me.

Wild Creature Photography. First prize, "Sea Lion," Catalina Island, by Marjorie Stewart (age 14), 6 Beechmont St., Worcester, Mass. Second prize,

(SILVER BADGE.)

"Blue Jay on Nest',' by Franc B. Daniels (age 15), 2113 Kenwood Parkway, Minneapolis, Minn. Third prize, "Squirrel," by Donald Myrick (age 13), 151 Bowdoin St., Springfield, Mass. Gold badges,

Puzzle-Making. Dorothy Eddy (age 14), Box 254, Riverside, R. I., and Samuel A. Bangs (age 14), Girard College, Philadelphia, Pa.

Silver badges, Helen Whitman (age 12), 1325 Greenwood St., Evanston, Ill., and Marcellite Watson (age 9), St. Mary's School, 714 Poplar St., Memphis, Tenn.

Puzzle Answers. Gold badge, Harriet O'Donnell (age 13), 214 N. Main St., Bellefontaine, O.

Silver badges, Frances C. Bennett (age 13), 2120 Delaware Ave., Swissvale, Pa., and Elizabeth Pierce (age 17), Englewood, N. J.

THE FOREST VOICE.
BY NANNIE CLARK BARR (AGE 15).
(Cash Prize.)

Do you not hear them call you, dear, away?
Sweet, scarce distinguished voices of the night,
Spreading before you o'er the field and brae,
To where the first dark trunks shut out the light.

The sombre, brooding branches in the dark

Hold out strange treasures, winds that sing and sigh, And moonlight drifting down, spark after spark, From the far, high-lit altar of the sky.

N. Y., and Louise A. Bateman (age 11), 33 Robbins Rd., Arlington, Mass.

BY ELIZABETH A. CUTLER, AGE 16. (SILVER BADGE.)

They sing you night songs, half articulate, They lead you, fairy child, along the path Where-but the forest-bed may roam and wait The visions which the world-old forest hath.

One night my mother went out for a little walk after father was asleep. When she came back she could not easily get in by way of the door as the guides were lying in front of it, so she lifted up the tent-cloth

at the back and crawled in under it.

Just as she did so father woke up and saw her. She is not exactly thin, and she was wearing her coat and skirt on account of the cold. Seeing this big black creature creep into the tent in the darkness, he immediately decided that it was a bear and began to call to the guide. "Christy!" he said. Christy slept peacefully on. Christy! What's that?" Mother is deaf and did not hear him, but fortunately I was awake. In as sleepily tranquil a voice as I could achieve, I said: "It 's mother, father." "Are you sure?" he asked, still suspicious of the bear. "Yes,' I said, and as the ferocious beast proceeded to lie down very tamely in her place, he subsided.

66

The bear meanwhile was quite unconscious of the excitement she had caused, and the guides and my brother slept through the whole episode. I think that none of them knew anything about it until the morning, when father and I told the story. We had a good deal of fun over that adventure afterward, but it was not very funny for father at the time, and it might have been worse if I had not been awake.

HILL AND FOREST.

BY GRACE LESLIE WILSON (AGE 17).
(Gold Badge.)

"OH, hills that stretch into a land unknown!"

I cried, while I was yet a dreamy child-"What is the world? What does the future hold?" Silent the grand, dim hills;

Back my appeal was thrown,

And secrets centuries old were silent too,

Their mockery and travesty untold.

But they lie far from the moving world's wild moil,

All that stirs the silver silence of their day
Is joy content and God-like sacredness;
Happiness the single toil,

And life there is one wholesome roundelay.

"Oh forest, is all the world as deep And restful as thou art to-day?"