228 NATURE STUDY. 



The study of home geography should include the birds, 

 the bees, the flowers and leaves and all the multidude of 

 living things that make the spring so beautiful and the 

 summer so glad. Hills and mountains, lakes and rivers, 

 brooks and springs are at our service and can reach many 

 a boy whose mind is impervaous to book lore. 



From now till nature begins to slumber in the fall is the 

 geography teacher's opportunity. Not all the time can be 

 spent in the open air. School committees would not allow 

 and too much time would not be profitable. There are 

 other things to be studied besides geography, and they 

 need books and paper and desks. There is little danger, 

 however, of overdoing this matter under present condi- 

 tions. 7To teach where nature is, is a privilege. To lead the 

 young mind to a love of nature and to a knowledge of her 

 secrets is a duty. Happy is the teacher whose work is 

 near nature's sand table. 



The Bluebird Recoupment. 



Central Park bird students began work fully two weeks earlier 

 this year than ever before. The warm days and fair skies of March 

 brought the birds back from the south in unprecedented numbers 

 for so early in the season, and every pleasant morning nowadays 

 amateur ornithologists, notebooks in hand, can be seen sometimes 

 as early as five o'clock hovering near the wooded sections carefully 

 observing the movements of the songsters. 



The feature of the spring has been the reappearance in numbers 

 unknown since 1894 of the bluebirds. This, in addition to being a 

 gratification to lovers of this daintiest of birds, was of value to 

 science, in that it showed the bluebird as occupjring a sort of espe- 

 cial niche in the bird world that could not be filled by any other of 

 the feathered tribe. In 1895 the blizzard which swept the south all 

 but annihilated the bluebirds. Continued storms prevented the 

 birds from securing food, and they died by thousands. The few 

 remaining ones, however, have since been able with their progeny 



