ANIMAL AND PLANT LORE OF CHILDREN. 367 



The influence of gases and vapors upon climate was to some ex- 

 tent considered by its eminent discoverer, Professor Tyndall, and I 

 presume by every one that has read his account of his experiments 

 on the passage of heat through these bodies. Theorizers on climate 

 have been fond of changing the earth's axis, confining themselves, 

 however, for the most part to altering the geographical position of 

 the poles i. e., increasing one set of latitudes and decreasing another, 

 to suit their needs ; and a few have invoked an increased or a de- 

 creased obliquity. 



The present explanation differs widely from all that have preceded 

 it, and in its entirety has the merit of novelty, whatever that may be. 



-- 



ANIMAL AND PLANT LOEE OF CHILDREN. 



By Mrs. FANNY D. BERGEN. 



OUR modern scientific methods of education are slowly correcting 

 hosts of popular errors regarding every-day subjects of observa- 

 tion, and doubtless a succeeding generation will have outgrown many 

 queer conceits and myths now held as facts by the great majority of 

 country children. It will hereafter be interesting to have preserved a 

 full record of such misapprehensions. The wish to add a trifle to such 

 a record has led me to note some common superstitions concerning 

 animals and plants, which have come under my own knowledge. 

 Children have quick perceptions, and therefore are good observers 

 or seers. The observations they make, however, regarding the ani- 

 mals and plants about them, while often in themselves quite accurate, 

 lead to very incorrect conclusions. This is because children do not 

 reason deeply. It takes a long time for them to learn that not once or 

 twice, but a great many times, must one phenomenon follow certain 

 other preceding phenomena to warrant the use of the logical terms 

 effect and cause. Caution in forming deductions comes only with 

 experience and education. Children have keen eyes for any strange 

 peculiarities as well as for real or fancied resemblances, and are quick 

 to appreciate the qualities of plants. An enthusiastic botanist and 

 teacher, speaking of children, said, " They bow as to some fetich 

 before poisonous plants." Monstrosities in Nature fascinate them. 

 Double apples, strangely shaped knots from trees, grotesque roots, 

 curious lichens adorn many " play-houses." Their readiness to get 

 hold of the properties of plants explains how it is that children (boys 

 particularly, because they are more in the out-door world) find so 

 many things to eat in the woods and fields. A boy accustomed to 

 tramp about will seldom go a hundred rods afield before he begins to 

 nibble or chew something that he finds growing in his path. Can you 

 not recall a dozen wild things of which you were fond in childhood 



