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and before many years pass, their owner may repay and delight you by 

 an extended knowledge and original work. 



Books, papers and periodicals are now aiding the good work, and 

 works on entomology, botany, ornithology, etc., are to be obtained, 

 wherein is given in a pleasing, popular form talks on such topics with- 

 out the difficult technical terms which alarm so many at the outset of 

 these studies. Names must be learned in due time, being absolutely 

 necessary if we are to discuss or impart our knowledge. Like money, 

 names are but a medium of exchange. When there is the demand, the 

 supply is soon found, and such books are on the increase. Parents 

 will aid by placing these in the hands of the children and instructors of 

 youth. The boys and girls can help by noticing the habits of birds, the 

 flowering of plants, the homes and nests of insects, and in remembering 

 to be kindly with all God's creatures, who have feelings and suffer in 

 some degree like us, though unable to speak to us in our language, to 

 tell the wrongs they sutler, yet their plaintive calls or agonized cries 

 should And commiseration in our hearts. The one who inflicts torture 

 on his inferior is a tyrant and a coward ; but to the one who prevents 

 and alleviates suffering, the noble title of hero belongs. 



Boys and girls with quick eyes and active feet can gather speci- 

 mens where their elders, less nimble, fearless and active, would fail. 



The young ladies, too, can help the ornithologist, who rightly grieves 

 over the destruction of thousands of birds whose happy existence is 

 sacrificed at the altar of fashion for the sake of their plumage, which is 

 worn upon ladies' hats and bonnets. Would they deem it an adorn- 

 ment if they thought of the slaughter of the gay, pretty creatures, which 

 people the groves and forests and make them ring with their happy 

 songs and bright existence i No! we answer. Ladies are kind but 

 thoughtless on this point, and perhaps reason that it is no harm to wear 

 the bird or a part of its plumage when it is dead, not thinking that they 

 ary fostering the trade in bird life and pandering go a cruel whim of 

 dame Fashion. Quite a different thing is the taking of the lives of a 

 few of these for scientific studies, and it is quite proper that the Govern- 

 ment of the country should assist Natural History, by equipping and 

 opening to the public, museums, suitable as receptacles for the collections 

 which have been brought together and which are yearly increasing. 



