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Such museums are direct public educators. Strict laws might be framed, 

 and are in most countries, to prevent cruelty and control the avarice of 

 man from carrying on the wholesale slaughter of birds and animals, 

 where there is fear of the extermination of some species, or the destruc- 

 tion of our entire forests. They can assist, equip and encourage our 

 devoted naturalists, whose sole aim is the amelioration of the world. 



From a diversity of tastes and mental faculties, all subjects of 

 Natural History receive due attention ; each department has its own 

 particular value, and any advance in one does not re-act to the detriment 

 of any other. 



We find some taking great pleasure in the study of Conchology, 

 and claiming that shells and their animal inhabitants, when compared 

 with the other orders of creation, are inferior to none, showing in 

 external appearance as beautiful forms or contour, as exquisite and 

 varied tints and shades of color, and as harmoniously developed a struc- 

 ture and fitness for its surroundings in the animal inhabitant as are to 

 be found in the more complicated higher classes of animals. 



And Botany has always had particular charms, and our plants and 

 flowers that so beautify and adorn the brown earth, lend their fragrant 

 odors to delight our sense of smell, and themselves to adorn not only 

 the body but to cultivate the aesthetic in our nature, as well as the 

 most desirable qualities of mind They alwajs have ministered to our 

 sufferings, in furnishing medicines and remedies to the healer's art- 

 Many there are who find plants too passive to suit their mental trend, 

 and find, in the study of ornithology that life, that sympathy which 

 satisfies their nature, and in our country they have much new work 

 before them, and may find inspiration from a perusal of the life oi 

 Audubon, who pursued his extensive studies under such difficulties and 

 discouragements, yet who raised the greatest monument that Art ever 

 gave to Nature, in his great work, " The Birds of America." 



The Field- Naturalists' Club has 'for its composition not only scien- 

 tists and naturalists, in the fullest meaning of these terms, but many 

 who devote their leisure alone to such pleasing studies, and who imbibe 

 much love and inspiration for the work, as well as much 

 valuable information from the efforts of those so capable of leading 

 and directing others on the borders of such an extensive study. 



