APRIL. 125 



bush plan will repay the cultivator. It would be more expense in the 

 first place, but iron uprights with three-eighths wire for the horizontal 

 bars, similar to the cheap wire fences, would make a very neat trellis 

 for these fruits where wood is scarce, and would in time repay the 

 outlay. S. 



Bowood, March 1856. 



STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 

 During my rambles in quest of Ferns and various wild flowers 

 which grow luxuriantly in the neighbourhood of Bath, I have been 

 grieved to find the country people not only ignorant, but indifferent, 

 about the objects around them : birds, insects, and flowers are un- 

 heeded, and it is in vain to ask for any particulars beyond the mere 

 names, and even that knowledge is so scanty that I can seldom find a 

 villager who can tell me when the swallows arrive or the song of the 

 nightingale is heard. A clever writer has powerfully written in the 

 Athenceiim, and in other metropolitan publications I have recently 

 noticed letters on this subject. Portions of those letters are so suitable 

 to the pages of the Florist, that I will enclose copies of them. 



For twenty years I have been endeavouring to inculcate a love for 

 nature amongst the young people of my acquaintance, and 1 am happy 

 in believing that my efforts have been successful amongst the educated ; 

 but I feel a much deeper interest for the poor, and would fain provide 

 them with sources of enjoyment that would soften their hard lot, and 

 give them pursuits tendmg towards moral improvement and unbought 

 pleasure. 



During the last month, I have placed in my parlour window several 

 glass jars in which plants and animals are displayed, in the way that 

 you may have seen them, on a grander scale, in the Royal Zoological 

 Gardens. Diving water spiders {Argyroneta aquatica), prove very 

 attractive. " These spiders," says De Geer, " spin in the water a cell 

 of strong, closely woven, white silk, in the form of half the shell of a 

 pigeon's egg, or like the diving-bell. This is sometimes left partly 

 above water, but at others it is entirely submersed, and is always 

 attached to the objects near it by a great number of irregular threads. 

 It is closed all round, but has a large opening below." Into this 

 opening the spiders convey air-bubbles and there burst them, so that 

 their habitation is gradually expanded with atmospheric air, until they 

 have a large dry room, surrounded by water, to deposit their eggs in 

 and bring up their progeny. There is a crowd dally round my parlour 

 window to watch the operations of those balloon spiders. I hear the 

 conversation of my juvenile visitors, and, when I find occasion to do so, 

 give open-air lectures to the auditors. I have, besides spiders, fishes, 

 beetles, and marine animals, all healthy, and kept with very little 

 trouble. The only thing needful is to establish a balance of animal and 

 vegetable life. If the Vallsneria spiralis becomes brown, I put in a 

 water-snail, which soon removes the Confervse ; if the water becomes 



