shufeldt] NATURE-STUDY AND COMMON ANIMALS 2f,l 



As I read the very instructive and beautiful number of The 

 Nature-Study Review for December, 1914 (Vol. 10, No. 9). my 

 mind was carried back over the more than half century's study 

 and observation of what Nature offers us in all parts of the world, 

 and the thought came to me as to what, among other things, had 

 been the source of the greatest assistance to me throughout this 

 long term of continuous study. The answer was not far to seek, 

 and I am convinced that there is no more efficient aid to the young 

 student of nature than correct and life-like illustrations of the 

 objects he reads about or sees in nature. Scientific literature would 

 indeed, either for young or old students, be a dull story were it 

 not for the great wealth of pictorial illustration that now forms a 

 part of it. This feature has been immensely improved in all 

 particulars, especially in the matter of accuracy and naturalness, 

 through the achievements of modem photography in that direc- 

 tion. The appreciation of this fact and its utilization has long 

 been seen as constituting a feature of our A. B. C. books and other 

 juvenile literature. Our bird books for the young would surely 

 be very insipid and tiresome were it not that the only ones deserv- 

 ing of the name are generously illustrated with fine colored figures 

 of the birds they undertake to describe. All this applies especially 

 to plants, flowers, fossils, insects, spiders, crayfish, shells, fishes, 

 reptiles, and all the rest we find in nature, up to include the various 

 races of men inhabiting the world. Good illustrations — photo- 

 graphic, if possible — are not only an inspiration to nature students 

 at any age but they are absolutely essential. .] i 



For a great many years past, I have never allowed a year to 

 go by that I did not make a more or fewer number of photographic 

 negatives of the common plants and animals of the region where 

 I happened to be living at the time. This collection has now 

 gotten to be quite extensive, and, although some of my "animal 

 and plant photographs" have been published, it would be very 

 selfish on my part were I not to turn some of these into channels 

 where our boys and girls could make use of them in their nature 

 studies. As a rule, all of my subjects are of the size of nature, 

 unless they be too large to get them conveniently on to a five by 

 eight dry plate. Were the entire series I have in my collection 

 published, with suitable and descriptive text, a very substantial 

 contribution to the history of many American plants and animals 

 would be the result. As it is, I only aim to give here, in the 



