A VILLAGE SCHOOL COMPETITION.
[To THE EDITOR OF 2'HE "SPECTATOR.')
SIR,—The day on which the summer holiday began one of the managers of our village school offered four money prizes for the most striking natural-history incident noticed by the children. To-day the award was made. Among the facts given were these : A blackbird's nest with four blackbird's and three thrush's eggs; a hawk eating a mouse ; a white sparrow in a cornfield ; a pig without feet ; a redcap eating garden peas; a red and a white rose on one stalk ; a blackbird which reared two broods—the first of five, the second four ; a white blackbird (father said he had seen it many times); some sparrows in a swallows' nest; a dog riding on a horse's back; an old mother bird teaching the young ones to fly ; a crow fighting a hen; two queen wasps fighting outside the nest. One child with red hat was chased by a bull and "tumbled over a gate" to escape it. The children were told that they might note something which had never been before
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