THE STORY OF A TERRARIUM FROM FALL 



UNTIL SPRING, 



ALICE I. KENT. 



And Nature, the old nurse, took 

 ' The child upon her knee, 

 Saying: " Here is a story book 

 Thy Father has written for thee." 



— Longfellow to Agassis. 



Fortunate are the children and tlie teachers wlio are so placed 

 that Nature's story book is close at hand. But city children aiid 

 their teachers need not despair, for the old nurse is loving and 

 bountiful and will rewrite, in living characters, many a page fi-om 

 the wondrous book, for those who care to read. One such a page 



113. — Life in tlie terrarium. 



may be a teri*arium, — a confined plot of earth on which things may 

 live and grow. (From terra " earth," as aquarium is from aqua., 

 '• water.") Within its narrow confines, the whole drama of the 

 beautiful life of many a tiny creature may be rewritten. 



Here is a fragment of the drama, as written in one terrarium. 



This terrarium was made from an old berry -crate (Figs. 112, 113). 



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