NA TURE- S TUD Y NO TES 9 3 



from contact with nature. The passion for nature finds expression in 

 seeking, maiming, killing, destroying. Wild flowers are greedily and 

 ruthlessly gathered, creatures are chased and slaughtered, in a kind of 

 impetuous savagery. It is so easy to change all this. Dr. Hodge's 

 experience with Worcester children in the matter of toad killing is 

 a notable illustration. In "Nature-Study and Life" he says: 



"While walking once around a small pond I counted two hundred toads 

 dead or mangled and struggling in the water, and learned next day that 

 two boys had killed three hundred more, carrying them off in an old milk 

 can to empty on a man's doorstep. This five hundred does not represent 

 probably one-tenth of the number killed by the children that spring (1897) 

 around this one pond. A "civilization" in which such abuses of nature are 

 possible ought to be eaten alive by insects, and something must be funda- 

 mentally wrong with a system of public education that does not render 

 such a thing impossible. My first impulse was to get a law passed and 

 appeal to the police ; but the wiser counsel of a friend prevailed, and I was 

 inclined to try education of the children instead. Accordingly a prize of 

 $10.00 was offered to the Worcester school-child who would make the best 

 practical study of the "Value of the Common Toad." This was offered 

 March 31, 1898, and there was no evidence that a single toad was harmed 

 at the pond the following April and May." 



Wolves and Coyotes in the West have caused enormous losses to live- 

 stock interests in the past. The offering of bounties for predatory animals 

 has proved quite inadequate to ridding the western country of the animals 

 which, in Oregon alone, caused a loss of $250,000 in 1907. The U. S. 

 Forest Service, in a recent circular, states that trained hunters and syste- 

 matic campaigns are the only means which avail in any .considerable 

 degree to protect a given region . 



Instruction in Agriculture is now given in the normal schools of twelve 

 states in the Union. Seventeen states have one or more public high 

 schools giving such instruction. 



Nature-Study in Country Schools. O. J. Kern, of Illinois, in a recent 

 number of the Western Journal of Education, says: "For inspiration in 

 my efforts to create a new ideal with reference to the beautiful in count ry 

 life, I am indebted to various agencies given below, though not necessarily 

 given in order of importance. 



1 . Bulletins issued by the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 especially the ones issued by the Bureau of Plant Industry and the Bureau 

 of Forestry. 



2 . Publications of the American Park and Outdoor Art Association. 



3. Literature and pictures given by the Youth's Companion Publishing 

 Company. 



4. Various magazines like Country Life in America. 



5. Arbor and Bird Day manuals issued for the past six years by the state 

 superintendents of Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Illinois. 

 Those of Wisconsin have been especially helpful. 



6. Books like Babcock's "Bird Day"; Ely's "A Woman's Hardy Gar- 



