238 NATURE STUD\. 



to attempts at classification — and every child delights in 

 classification, so long as it is free from drudgery. The 

 child, even when wholly unaided, finds pleasure in ob- 

 ser\'ing what one creature has that another creature lacks 

 — and this is classification. With insects the differences 

 among the major groups are generally so obvious from ex- 

 ternal characters as to make recognition and separation 

 easy. 



Suggest to the children that they catch a considerable 

 number of all sorts of creatures that look like insects. 

 They will need no urging. The creatures having been 

 killed by means of a " C3^anide bottle," with chloroform, 

 or an}' of the expedients now familiar to most teachers and 

 parents, let them be placed in a mass upon the table at 

 home or in the schoolroom, or better still, upon a newspa- 

 per spread on the grass in the field. 



Now let the children compare, select, and arrange in 

 groups in their own way. It is surprising, what they can 

 do without a suggestion from a teacher. In a short time, 

 with keen eyes and nimble fingers, they will have the 

 butterflies and moths in one pile, the beetles in another ; 

 a separate pile for the grasshoppers, and almost surely an- 

 other for the flies, although at first the flies and the bees 

 are likely to get mixed. 



When the children have made as many divisions as 

 they can give reasons for, the teacher may venture a sug- 

 gestion occasionally, still leaving the young folks to do 

 most of the thinking and all of the work. Probably some 

 brown, flat creatures have been gathered from under fallen 

 leaves and decaying wood. Let the children place these 

 in a pile by themselves, after counting their many pairs of 

 legs. These are centipedes, and they have one pair of legs 

 on each joint of their many-jointed bodies. There may be 

 another creature, somewhat like the centipede, but with a 

 round body and two pairs of legs on each joint. This is a 



