96 NATURE STUDY. 



Nature Study Lessons. V. 



BY EDWARD J. BURNHAM. 



An incidental but important result of nature study is the 

 brushing awa}' of prejudice against many harmless and in- 

 offensive forms of life. In this way, as in so many others, 

 it tends to increase the sum of human happiness. Many a 

 person otherwise intelligent and sensible, finds the pleasure 

 of a ramble diminished or destroj-ed by a dread of creatures 

 that are not only powerless to inflict injur3% but whose hab- 

 its are interesting and whose lives are useful. Many a 

 sheltered nook, teeming with life, and full of pleasing pos- 

 sibilities, is shunned because of fear that some object of 

 dread may be discovered there. 



The truth is that in temperate climates there are very 

 few animals or plants that call for the exercise of more than 

 ordinary caution, while the vast majorit}- of both are harm- 

 less altogether. There are certain degraded parasitic forms 

 that may properly be despised ; certain others excite dis- 

 gust by their modes of existence, and a somewhat larger 

 number may inflict temporary pain if carelessly handled; 

 but as knowledge increases, fear is supplanted by reason, 

 and prejudice disappears. Toads, lizards and snakes, for 

 example, are almost univ^ersally regarded with sensations 

 of disgust or fear, and yet, a little time devoted to the ob- 

 ser\^ation of their habits will modify one and alla)^ the oth- 

 er. No person of ordinar}^ sensibility can long contemp- 

 late any one of our common harmless snakes, as it goes on 

 its narrow round of existence, without finding prejudice 

 change to pity for the half-blind thing, feeling its way with 

 its tongue, doomed to kill that it may live, and almost cer- 

 tain to be killed in its turn by some creature as hungry as 

 itself. For all life in the fields is sooner or later a tragedy 



With the possible exception of snakes, there are no ob- 



