^34 



Junior Naturalist Monthly. 



plan is to get the specimen first and then to study the illustration, but 

 oftentimes a child will get his ideas from some lesson and find interest 

 in his quest for the object illustrated. 



Fig. 6. — A spray of alder showing the catkins. 



SOMETHING FOR JUNIOR NATURALISTS TO READ. 



" Ah ! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West, 

 From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest, 

 When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board 

 The old broken links of affection restored, 

 When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more, 

 And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before, 

 What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye? 

 What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?"' 



— From The Pumpkin by J. G. Whittier. 



"With cheerful heart I could be a sojourner in the wilderness. I 

 should be sure to find there the catkins of the alder. When I read of 

 them in the accounts of northern adventurers by Bafiin's Bay or Macken- 

 zie's River, I see how even there too I could dwell. They are my little 

 vegetable redeemers. Methinks my virtue will not flag ere they come 

 again. They are worthy to have had a greater than Neptune or Ceres 

 for their donor. Who was the benignant goddess that bestowed them 

 on mankind?" Henry D. Thoreau. 



