He turned his head over his shoulder and looked at me, as much as to say, "You hear that ?" then swivelled it round again, and anew contemplated the weather, apparently with approbation.

So human were his pose and carriage and the way he kept turning his head, that I remarked almost involuntarily, "Fine weather for the worms, Mr.Raven!" "Yes," he answered, in the rather croaky voice I had learned to know, "the ground will be nice for them to get out and in!--It must be a grand time on the steppes of Uranus!" he added, with a glance upward; "I believe it is raining there too; it was, all the last week!" "Why should that make it a grand time ?" I asked.
"Because the animals there are all burrowers," he answered, "-- like the field-mice and the moles here .-- They will be, for ages to come." "How do you know that, if I may be so bold ?" I rejoined.
"As any one would who had been there to see," he replied.

"It is a great sight, until you get used to it, when the earth gives a heave, and out comes a beast.

You might think it a hairy elephant or a deinotherium--but none of the animals are the same as we have ever had here.

I was almost frightened myself the first time I saw the dry-bog-serpent come wallowing out--such a head and mane! and SUCH eyes!--but the shower is nearly over.