in Fig. 4, one strip being sufficient. It may be also changed in position by rotating the entire board on the lens tube.

Many interesting stop experiments may be made by setting another disc on the board, and cutting vertical, horizontal and other openings in it. This second disc must of course lie over the first, and must have one full opening so that when set full it will not interfere with the first disc. One opening may be covered by a piece of cleared film dyed in a proper yellow dye, to act as a ray filter.

Using the board above described as a support, a very efficient shutter may be improvised from pasteboard or metal,

if the lens shutter should become crippled. Two leaves are made as shown in Fig. 5, and slotted on the lines marked. These leaves are pivoted at A in Fig. 6. A wooden strip with a peg through it into the slots, at B, is pivoted at C and lies across the leaves. This is the actuating lever. The trigger shown at D is pivoted at E, and a thin rubber band from F to G keeps the trigger in the notches of both leaves at H and also pulls down the lever when the trigger is released. The shutter is released by pressing down trigger D. This releases it from slots H and the lever, I, being pulled down, forces the leaves apart by its path through the angular slots, and then pulls them together as it completes its stroke. The shutter is reset by raising the lever I to its former position, when the trigger again engages the leaves. If the leaves are of pasteboard put a screw at J to take the pressure of the trigger off the leaves. When not in use the shade wing of the hood folds down over the board, and so makes the device very compact.

A STORY WITH A MORAL.

By J. W. LITTLE.

ONCE knew of a woman one of whose greatest trials in life was a continual conflict with that noxious hexapod, so dear to so many of our hearts, familiarly known as the bedbug. The odoriferous insects vexed her almost constantly. Daily, and with infinite patience and painstaking, she sought out their rendezvous, while at night, with fear and trembling, she lay down in their habitat to dream of or perchance to be molested by them in fancy if not in fact. So acute were her olfactories that she could detect the presence of a bedbug in the adjoining flat of her neighbor (whence all bad bedbugs come, as any woman will testify) the moment it headed her way. To have her epidermis punctured by the cimex lectularius proboscis would almost superinduce nervous prostration, and the mere mention of bedbugs within her hearing meantwell, she never forgave it. It shows a poor sense of propriety to speak of ropes in the presence of a family a member of which has been hanged.

This woman's efforts to get rid of the pests had been as unremitting as they had been unavailing. She had tried every remedy and every preventive she could conceive of or could learn of from books read in secret, but with all her precautions they loved her still. She was in fact becoming bughouse herself.

Finally a sympathetic friend, to whom she had appealed in strictest confidence, and who knew much about such things (as every woman does, though few will admit it), advised her to use a solution of corrosive sublimate as an exterminator. She procured some at once and got busy with it. The greybacks made a gallant stand but at last were forced to retreat and capitulate. Her joy was great. Like the fable of old, she now had as it were but to rub the magic lamp and forthwith the bedbugs disappeared.

Needless to say, therefore, when our good woman dis