1 86 The Ottawa Naturalist, [January 



by Dr. Geo. M. Dawson, F.R.S., etc., the Deputy Minister of that 

 Department, with a suitable acknowledgrnent. Dr. Rohert Bell, 

 F.R.S., etc., delivered a lecture on " Various Phases of the Forests 

 of Canada," illustrated with beautiful lantern slides showing 

 typical forms of the more important forest trees of Canada. The 

 president's address, as well as those of Dr. Dawson and Dr. Bell 

 will appear in later numbers of the Ottawa Naturalist. The 

 following is the 



Address of Welcome. 

 By J. H. Putman, B.A., Science Master, Ottawa Normal School. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : — 



I desire in the first place, on behalf of Principal MacCabe 

 who is unavoidably absent, to extend a cordial welcome to the 

 Field Naturalists' Club and to their friends. I also desire to bear 

 personal testimony to the many kindnesses shown the Ottawa 

 Normal School by the Field Naturalists' Club. The President of 

 the Club and several of its officers have given us much valuable 

 assistance and have shown the deepest interest in our work in 

 science. I am certain that among the happiest memories carried 

 away from Ottawa by our students will be those of pleasant out- 

 ings with your Club. 



May I be permitted for a few moments to touch upon one or 

 two aspects of the work of such an organization as this, as it pre- 

 sents itself to a teacher interested in Nature study. While all of 

 us know that man's intellectual life is a growth from sensation, 

 perhaps we are all prone to underestimate the advantages of hav- 

 ing this early sensory training as definite and varied as possible. 

 And yet nothing can be more certain than that, other things being 

 equal, the man who has had his senses well trained, will have a fuller, 

 richer, happier and healthier intellectual life than the man whose 

 contact with things, and especially with the things ot Nature, has 

 been limited. He who has seen but never tasted a strawberry has 

 a poor and very vague idea of that fruit, and he who sees the rose 

 but misses its fragrance, has at most only half the reality. 



Oliver Wendell Holmes, in speaking of the little power 

 vthat some have to observe, says : "Yet there are multitudes 



