144 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



Our membership ranks are open to 

 any earnest student of botany. 



Officers of the Gray Memorial Botan- 

 ical Chapter of the AA for 1908: 



President: Miss Pauline Kaufman, 173 

 East 124th St., New York. N. Y. 



General Secretary: Mr. George P. 

 Ells, Norwalk, Conn. 



Treasurer: Miss Julia J. Noll, 309 

 East 7th St., Plainfiefd, N. j. 



Members of Executive Council: Mr. 

 Charles W. Allen. Manasquan, N. J. ; 

 Mr. Paul A. Herr, Lancaster, Penn. 



Any information desired in regard to 

 the Chapter may be obtained by writing 

 to the General Secretary. 



A WORD OF GOOD CHEER. 



FROM DR. L. O. HOWARD, BUREAU OF EN- 

 TOMOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OE AGRI- 

 CULTURE, WASHINGTON, D. C, 

 MEMBER OF THE AA COUNCIL. 



My home while I was a boy was at 

 Ithaca, New York, which lies in a de- 

 lightful region at the head of Cayuga 

 Lake, with wooded hills, swift streams, 

 beautiful waterfalls, high cliffs, fertile 

 farms, and also, near the lake end, ex- 

 tensive marshes. It is an excellent place, 

 in fact, for the study of natural history. 

 I became interested in insects as a boy of 

 seven, on a visit to Long Island, through 

 a ten-years-old chap by the name of 

 Stewart who was collecting cocoons of 

 cecropia, polyphemus and promethia 

 moths. I carried the newly acquired in- 

 terest back with me to Ithaca, and, as 

 such things spread in a community of 

 boys, it was not long before a dozen or 

 more of us were collecting butterflies and 

 beetles, moths and bees, and had formed 

 a natural history society with meetings 

 every two weeks at which specimens 

 were exhibited and papers were read. I 

 believe that I happen to be the only one 

 of those boys to continue a branch of nat- 

 ural history as a profession, but I am sure 

 that all of the others retain a vivid inter- 

 est in such things and that their lives 

 have been hanpier as a result of their 

 knowledge of outdoor things and of their 

 acquired habit of keeping their eyes open 

 to the interesting phases of nature. At 

 Cornell University, which I entered at 

 the age of sixteen, I took especial work 

 in entomolop'v under Professor Corn- 



stock, and after a year of postgraduate 

 work came to Washington to join the 

 entomological service of the government, 

 and here I have been ever since. 



There is nothing I can tell Dr. Bige- 

 low, and probably nothing' I can tell the 

 people whom he interests which is new 



LELAND O. HOWARD, PH. D. 

 Washington, D. C. 



in the way of argument of inducement 

 to observe nature, but there is so much 

 in insect life that still remains to be 

 known, so many interesting facts which 

 the observer however placed can find out 

 that will add to the sum total of human 

 knowledge, that it is a wonder that there 

 are not many more entomologists than 

 there are. I have pointed this out in the 

 introduction to The Insect Book, which 

 in fact was written not so much to tell 

 what is known, but to point out what is 

 not known but which nevertheless can be 

 more or less easily found out. The most 

 unobservant of persons, sitting for ex- 

 ample on a vine-shaded veranda, needs 

 only to concentrate his attention for a 



