197 



These enthusiastic leaders, whose unselfish interest in their work 

 and untiring zeal in trying to cause others to enter upon this field of 

 work, should be rewarded by noble results and a deep feeling of gratitude 

 from those who have enjoyed the opportunities of listening to their 

 lucid discourses in our winter gatherings, or to the familiar talks upon 

 the finds of the day, when we gathered on some shady slope or grassy 

 knoll, after a day's ramble amongst the birds and insects in our flowery 

 fields. We are given so much knowledge — knowledge that has been 

 attested, proved and reduced to a concise, definite form, and which we 

 could not have gained by our own isolated efforts without the labor of 

 r eading more than one book on the subjects of botany, entomology, 

 geology and ornithology. 



In closing this feeble effort to show that the study of Natural 

 Historv offers to all opportunities for its promotion as a science, some of 

 the more direct advantages of its bearing on man's corporeal wants, as 

 well as upon his mental and moral state, have been briefly noticed as 

 being an important part with which most of us can effectively deal, and 

 a part in which the human tendencies for a love of the marvellous, 

 merely superficial and somewhat credulous may be influenced and 

 directed to a healthy mental development and invigoration, by a selec- 

 tion of the proper mental food. 



For a better treatment of the subject, I must refer you to the 

 inaugural address by our worthy President, Dr. Ells, which you have in 

 a printed form in the January number of the " Ottawa Naturalist," 

 which records the transactions of "The Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club." 



I've done my little for the club in this paper from a deep sense of 

 gratitude for the great pleasure and profit I've derived from the meet, 

 ings of this society and from social intercourse with its members. 



■:o;- 



