2 
Nightingale, is to me surprising; yet that such people exist is 
but too well known. Shakespeare and our earlier poets duly ap- 
preciated, however, the varying melodies of our feathered songsters, 
and have never been slow to accord to each its well-earned tribute 
of praise :— 
“Tt was the nightingale, and not the lark, 
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear ; 
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree ; 
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.’ — 
Romeo ‘and Juliet, act iii. scene 5. 
Again :— 
“The busy larke, messager of daye, 
Salueth in hire song the morwe gray: 
And fyry Phebus ryseth up so bright, 
That al the orient laugheth of the light.”— 
Cuaucer, Knightes Tale. 
Or :— 
“‘ Hark how the cheerefull birds do chaunt theyr laies, 
And carroll of loves praise. 
The merry larke hir mattins sings aloft, 
The thrush replyes, the mavis descant playes, 
The ouzell shrills, ine ruddock warbles soft ; 
So goodly all agree with sweet consent 
To this dayes merriment.’— 
Spencer, Epithalamion, 1595. 
The study of natural history reveals to us a wide field, pregnant 
with interest and pleasure. The geologist, who, from the various 
aspects of nature, attempts to form a conception of how this planet 
has been formed, and the naturalist, whose senses are keenly alive to 
the beauty and importance of the manifold living objects which meet 
his gaze on every side, are pursuing a course calculated to lead to the 
highest and happiest results. Even the humble cottager who de- 
corates his windows with flowers, and the artisan who keeps and 
encourages his little birds to sing and to solace him, are imbued with 
tastes of a superior order, which, if properly cultivated, cannot 
fail to induce a greater intellectual development, and consequently 
an increase in happiness. 
Granted that the antiquary in poring over some dusty relic of a 
by-gone age experiences a thrill of pleasure denied to others, or 
that the wealthy man filling his rooms with the finest efforts of the 
artist’s pencil, and his cabinets with articles of rare and costly work- 
manship, thereby experiences a very high degree of gratification, or 
even that the man of pleasure, fulfilling the daily routine demanded by 
fashion, finds in it some irresistible attraction—yet what are these en- 
joyments compared with those daily and hourly offered to the student 
of nature! Does he not see in the growth of a blade of grass, or in 
the mechanism which enables the tiny gnat to effect the countless 
vibrations of its gauzy wings, or in the majestic ease of the soaring 
eagle, evidences of a power and skill immeasurably superior to those 
