NATURE-STUDY—ITS OBJECT AND RULES 38 
one word to say against collecting, naming, and classi- 
fying. Those were some of the things that had to be 
done before Nature-study as we know it to-day could 
be undertaken at all, and we may well be proud of and 
grateful to the great Englishmen and Frenchmen 
whose labours over many generations have contributed 
so largely to our present-day knowledge ; it is because 
they did their work of description and classification 
so well that we are able to launch out and explore 
realms unknown to them. That work is still far from 
completion, and, moreover, it demands the very best 
in the way of intellect and mental vision. 
Its results, as enshrined in our Floras, for example, 
are of incalculable value to the Nature-student, whose 
work cannot be carried on unless he too does a 
certain amount of collecting and is careful about 
naming his plants correctly. His programme must, 
however, include a very great deal more than that, 
for he should try to add something to our knowledge 
of the natural history of the members of our Flora 
and incidentally of our Fauna too. To put it as shortly 
as possible, he should aim at finding out, as far as he 
ean, what his particular plant does, why it does it, 
and how, and I propose offering a few hints gleaned 
from my own experience as a hobby-botanist. 
It is often, but not always, easy to see what a plant 
does, it is sometimes not difficult to understand why 
it does it, but it is frequently very hard to discover 
how it does it. 
If we bury a bulb of a daffodil in the soil we shall 
see that it grows into a beautiful plant which produces 
a flower and seeds. It is not difficult to discover 
reasons why it should do this, but I think nobody 
need be ashamcd of owning to a great deal of ignorance 
