Book excerpt: Cot and Cradle Stories by Catharine Parr Traill is a collection of children's tales. The volume contains: The Queen Bees, The Great Green Dragon-Fly and His Friends, Blind Willy's Dream, Betty Holt's Story, The Five Little Gardeners, A Garden Party, Katie's Secret, Midge, the Field-Mouse, and Her Family, What the Grey Parrot Said and Did, Tat and Tit: the Ground Squirrels of Minnewawa, The Pet Bantams, The Lofty and the Lowly; or, The Oak and Its Dependents, Mrs. Flytrap and Daddy Longlegs, Further Adventures of Tat and Tit, Dame Partlett and Mrs. Dorking, Mrs. Margery Pie; or, Prating Punished, The Wrens of "Westove", Rich Relations and Poor Ones, The Little Builders, The Stolen Voyage, and The Swiss Herd-Boy and His Alpine Mouse.