ON THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 9 
entombed in the earth, or slung in a hammock ; he can show you 
luxuriant beds of mosses—those children of the winter that flourish 
when all around is asleep: And even if he could not show you 
all this, think what marvellous stores of information he has laid 
up, that shall afford him food for thought when he is lonely, or 
from which he can draw fairy lore to wile away the winter evening; 
what tales he can tell you of the wonderful things he saw in the 
summer—how he found the boat of eggs floating about in the 
pond, so curiously and perfectly formed by the gnat, that it could 
not be upset—a veritable life-boat; again, how he drew from the 
water a thing monstrously strange, armed with jaws that could 
unfold themselves upon its prey while yet afar off, how with un- 
relenting stedfastness it destroyed and devoured the other in- 
habitants, and after a few months of such enjoyment it climbed 
up a tall reed, and splitting itself down the back, took unto itself 
wings and flew off to continue its carnage among the inhabitants 
of air. Or our naturalist may give you more pleasing accounts of 
the nests of the wren and titmouse, the beautiful spotted eggs of 
the thrush, and the pearly eggs of the azure haleyon—how one 
bird assailed him with a torrent of abuse as he approached her 
offspring, and another suffered him to lay hold of her, sooner 
than she would forsake her nest: again, of the banks of flowers 
upon which he lay and pondered—the bed of happy violets, the 
golden cowslips, the ‘‘jocund company” of daffodils, the delicate 
wood sorrel, the wind flower; he tells you how he saw the faee of 
wintry nature turned into a perfect paradise of loveliness, and says 
«‘ Though absent long 
These forms of beauty have not been to me 
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye; 
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din 
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, 
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet.” 
These are the stores upon which the lover of nature can draw. 
The poets of nature have been many, and I must not take up 
your time in quoting what is most likely familiar to you. I have 
tried to show what a charm there is around us if we like to ex- 
perience it—what an infinite variety there is for the mind to study. 
It is this infinite variety which gives the superiority to Natural 
History as a means of recreation: there is no fear of exhausting 
