THE INTEREST IN INSECTS 



155 



tance with Mr. Brown, made when I 

 was a youngster in short trousers- 

 From the time I was seven years old 

 I had had an interest in insects and, 

 using my straw hat in lieu of a butter- 

 fly net and cigar boxes for cabinets, I 

 had collected as best I could though 

 in ignorance of the names and habits 

 of my specimens. One day I learned 

 of Mr. Brown and his collections and 

 equipping myself with a box of butter- 

 flies as a talisman, I set out on a pil- 

 grimage to his home. 



If I had expected any formality I 

 was agreeably disappointed. I found 

 him in the garden, a pleasant, kindly 

 old man, spectacles set awry, a slouch 

 hat on one side of his head, sleeves 

 rolled up and a trowel in his hand. He 

 welcomed me as one after his own 

 heart, encouraged me, provided me 

 with books and allowed me to wander 

 to my heart's content among his col- 

 lections. The studies first seriously 

 begun there, I have followed with in- 

 creasing pleasure to the present time 

 and the debt I owe to Mr. Brown is 

 one not likely to be repaid. 



Not content in confining himself to 

 one branch of nature study, Mr. Brown 

 has made a study of geology ,and his 

 collections of ores and semiprecious 

 stones is one to delight the eyes of a 

 student. 



When the Uniontown Chapter of 

 The Agassiz Association was organ- 

 ized Mr. Brown became an enthusiastic 

 member. He has made frequent dona- 

 tions to our museum, and has ever 

 been willing to aid the Chapter in every 

 possible way. Under his instruction 

 several of the members have become 

 enthusiastic butterfly hunters. 



When not collecting insects, delving 

 for specimens of rock, working among 

 his flowers or helping some student 

 Mr- Brown finds time to paint lifelike 

 color portraits of the butterflies and 

 moths in his collection, and does it so 

 accurately that they have scientific 

 value. One of his butterfly paintings 

 is in the Carnegie Museum at Pitts- 

 burgh. 



Mr. Brown is one of the old school 

 naturalists, who has loved the out- 

 doors so sincerely as to devote his 

 time to nature study in the days when 

 such pursuits were considered childish 

 if not a sign of mental deficiency. It 



is largely owing to the unflagging zeal 

 of such men as he that Mother Nature 

 has come into her own, and the study 

 of insects, stones, birds, fishes and 

 frogs relegated from the realm of child's 

 play to one of the most important of 

 the intellectual pursuits. 



Fruit Requires the Bees. 



Fruit growers are beginning to rea- 

 lize the necessity of bees for the proper 

 fertilizing of fruit bloom, and that the 

 two industries are mutually inter-de- 

 pendent. If anything, the fruit grower 

 derives much more benefit from the 

 bees than the bee keeper himself. A 

 number of years ago the veteran bee 

 keeper and queen breeder, Henry Alley 

 of Massachusetts, now deceased, was 

 obliged to move his bees away, owing 

 to complaints of fruit growers, claiming 

 them to be a nuisance, but after a year 

 or two they were glad to get him back 

 again, because of so little fruit in pro- 

 portion to the number of blossoms. 



I have in mind an account I read in 

 one of the bee journals of a man in New 

 York State, who bought a farm and set 

 it out to fruit trees, expecting to flood 

 the market with fruit. After a few 

 years' waiting and getting no fruit, he 

 was obliged to sell out to another. The 

 second man thought he had a bonanza 

 but soon found out his mistake and 

 sold. The third buyer was a bee keep- 

 er and wanted it as a location for his 

 bees, as there were none around there 

 and at the same time mistrusting the 

 cause of the barrenness of the orchard 

 The result was that the first year he 

 harvested thousands of barrels of the 

 finest fruit ever raised in that section 

 and the orchard has continued to bear 

 since. — Green's Fruit Grower. 



The sunset glory fills the woods, 



The sunset of the year; 

 In Summers heat a cool retreat, 



Now full of warmth and cheer. 



— Emma Peirce. 



What is nature? Art thou not the 

 living Government of God? O, Heaven, 

 is it in very deed He then that ever 

 speaks through thee, — that lives and 

 loves in thee, that lives and loves in 

 me ? — Carlyle. 



