60 The Ottawa Naturalist. [June 



apple tree explained the cause of all this ontcry. The head of the 

 Redpoll was almost completely eaten away, pointing to a fact 

 which I have noticed with the Migrant Shrike, namely, that 

 the head contains what is to them the greatest delicacy. In 

 fact although I have often come across the larder of the Migrant 

 Shrike and occasionally that of the Northern, usually in the 

 shape of small birds or mice, I have always found the body 

 fairly intact, while the head would be missing. Evidently, they 

 do not suffer for want of food. We remained for several minutes 

 in the vicinity and during that time the Shrike kept up its 

 imitating notes, perhaps thinking to frighten us awa}^ from its 

 booty. L. McI. Terrill, Westmount, Que. 



Intimacy with Nature. There are some men to whom 

 intimacy with Nature in her obvious aspects and forms appears 

 to be an inheritance; they are born into it, and are never con- 

 scious of the hour from which it dates. Their eyes see the world 

 about them with a clearness and accuracy of observation which 

 turns their hours of play into unconscious study of science. 

 Flowers, trees, shrubs, birds and animals seem akin to them, 

 and are recognized at first sight, and put into proper place and 

 order. Other men, failing of this birth-gift and missing the 

 training of the senses in childhood,' must slowly and of set pur- 

 pose piece out a defective power of observation by habits formed 

 in maturity. This introductory relationship with Nature is a 

 source of inexhaustible delight and enrichment ; to establish it 

 ought to be as much a part of every education as the teaching of 

 the rudiments of formal knowledge ; and it ought to be as great a 

 reproach to a man not to be able to read the open pages of the 

 world about him as not to be able to read the open page of the 

 book before him. It is a matter of instinct with a few; it may 

 be a matter of education with all. Even those who are born 

 with the eyes and ears of naturalists must reinforce their 

 native aptitude by training. 



The man who goes into the woods, and by self-forgetfulness 

 becomes a part of the woods, is aware not onl}-" of a freshening 

 of his nature and a deepening of his thought, but also of a re- 

 velation of a knowledge through closer fellowship with the order 

 and beauty which enfold them. There enters into his mind, in 

 such moods, something more enduring than the scene about 

 him, something to which a poet will give expression in verses 

 which are not only touched with the beauty beyond that of 

 words, but in which that beauty becomes the symbol of truth. 

 The man Vn^Iio lacks the gift of expression will not write the 

 -vierse, but he will see the beauty and be enriched by the truth. 

 ^\ Hamilton Wright Mabie, in Nature and Culture. 





