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"Feathers," said Mr. Edison, "have a vibration period of three hundred and eighty-six million per second." He adjusted the index as he spoke. Then, through a sighting tube, he aimed at the bird. "Now watch," he said. The Crow's Fate. Another soft whirr in the instrument, a momentary flash of light close around it, and, behold, the crow had turned from black to white!

THE village of Weatherbury was quiet as the graveyard in its midst, and the living were lying well nigh as still as the dead. The church clock struck eleven. The air was so empty of other sounds that the whirr of the clock-work immediately before the strokes was distinct, and so was also the click of the same at their close.

Again the whirr, the swift flash of passing objects, and in an instant a huge desert stretched on every side of them, as far as the eye could reach. In the foreground a clump of five palm-trees towered into the air, with a profusion of rough cactus-like plants bristling from their base. On the other side rose a rugged, gnarled, grey monolith, carved at the base into a huge scarabaeus.

One after another I plugged away with my shots, now bent on making the most of them. With the answering shots it made quite a merry little fusillade, and I was glad enough to have the shelter of the staunch oak which two or three times was hit squarely at about the level of my shoulders. I had never before heard the whirr of so many bullets about me, and I cannot say that I enjoyed it.

Directly I moved, its agitation perceptibly increased, it was, so to speak, all one whirr of tremblement; it scintillated, as if its coloured scales had been so many prisms; it began to unsheath its wings, as if it had finally decided that it would make use of them. Picking up the tin, disembarrassing it of its lid, I sprang towards my intended victim.

Darting up to an old Italian who was standing near he soon returned with a small paper cornucopia filled with grain. "The pigeons of St. Mark's are very tame. See!" He put some kernels of corn on the top of his hat, and holding more in his outstretched hands stood motionless. There was a whirr of wings, and in an instant the boy was quite hidden beneath an eager multitude of fluttering whiteness.

Everybody assuming to be Anybody, was in town. The rumble of carriages passing to and fro was incessant, the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming and going motor vehicles, the hoarse cries of the newsboys, and the general insect-like drone and murmur of feverish human activity were as loud as at any busy time of the morning or the afternoon.

Hardly had he spoken than there sounded from the machine a whirr that told of the current being turned on. "Don't do that!" cried Tom, knowing at once that it could not be Ned, who never meddled with the machinery. A blinding flash and a loud report followed, and Tom saw some one leap from his car, and try to run away.

"I am Lord Green-Gold, I offer my house, my fortune and my love to Princess Hotaru." "Go and bring me fire and I will be your bride" said Hotaru-himé. With a bow of the head the beetle opened his wings and departed with a stately whirr. Next came a shining bug with wings and body as black as lamp-smoke, who solemnly professed his passion. "Bring me fire and you may have me for your wife."

The gleaming crystals of snow reflecting the coloured lamps; the Bengal lights staining the white expanse crimson and green, and silhouetting the outlines of the fir trees in dead black against the burnished steel of the sky; the crowd of guests in their many-coloured blanket-suits, made a singularly attractive picture, with a note of absolute novelty in it; and the crash of the military band, the merry whirr of the skates, and the roar of the descending toboggans had something extraordinarily exhilarating about them in the keen, pure air.