ot tbe IRigbt 



sea ? I can imagine smaller fish wandering miles 

 from the bay and yet escape detection ; and we 

 know how large creatures like the porpoise and 

 seal often come, and I am assured that a shark 

 has been seen more than one hundred miles from 

 salt water. Here in our river valleys and the 

 river's bed is opportunity for field work that will 

 change the complexion of more than one hand- 

 book of zoology. 



River-beds are not our only unexplored terri- 

 tories. Who has ever covered even so much 

 as the ground of his own door-yard ? Never a 

 day but we are compelled to ask questions, or 

 would ask them were we not content with our 

 ignorance. I have sometimes questioned whether 

 the widespread indifference to nature is not 

 telling evidence of an enfeebled intellect. Not 

 that with this indifference man or woman may 

 not fulfil all of life's requirements, but the fulfil- 

 ment would have shown out with greater bright- 

 ness if, coupled with strict attention to duty, there 

 had been an enthusiastic love of what, besides 

 ourselves, constitutes the world. A few hundreds 

 of men and women huddled in a city, breathing 

 foul air and the sweat and smoke of a thousand 

 chimneys, may hold as nothing all that lies be- 

 yond the limits of their daily lives ; but that out- 

 lying " all " has greater reason to hold them in 

 indifference. What a contradiction, when we hear 

 a man or woman extravagantly admire a land- 

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