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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



happy in the expected reward, only to receive shot instead of nuts and 

 to fall dead at the hunters feet. Another day, near the foot of the 

 western cliffs of San Clemente Island, a great dead sea-lion was floating 

 on a mass of kelp. The Japanese fisherman said that, the day before, 

 sportsmen had shot the sea-lion for the "fun of it." The call of the 

 wild is a tempting voice, leading men back to nature. May the day come 

 soon when many will respond to that call, but with the substitution of 

 camera for gun, yielding better sport and in the end saving our fast 

 vanishing native animals. Just as condemnable as killing animals for 

 sport is the fashion which demands the slaughter of birds for their 

 feathers. The story is familiar of how the beautiful plumes are taken 

 from nesting egrets, and thus the millinery hunters not only kill the 



Children at the Tide-pool. 



parents in large numbers, but also leave the young birds to starve in the 

 nest. Women who do not desire to share in such wanton destruction of 

 bird life will adorn their hats with feathers from the ostrich and other 

 domesticated birds, or with artificial flowers and ribbons. 



The poetic insight is necessary for creative work in science as well 

 as in literature. This gift enabled Darwin to construct a philosophy 

 of nature, and Browning to portray the human heart, while in Goethe 

 it was common source of inspiration for naturalist and poet. The imagi- 

 nation of the child should be cultivated, not suppressed. He should hear 

 voices singing in the winds and hold communion with the dryad of the 

 whispering woods and the Naiad of the babbling brook. The stories 

 and songs of negroes and Indians, as gathered in books of folk-lore, con- 



