ON THE STUDY OP NATURAL HISTORY. 59 



for its repetition. All well and good perhaps, but I 

 ask, is it not also our duty to keep our minds in 

 health, as well as our bodies ? The above individual 

 grows no richer, mentally, for his labour. How 

 different from the case of another, who tells you he 

 never comes home from a ramble without having 

 discovered something fresh : he goes out to escape 

 from his daily routine of business ; he knows that 

 nothing rests the mind so much as change, and that 

 when it is thoroughly wearied out by continued con- 

 centration on one subject, it is better to occupy 

 it with another than to suffer it to be idle. And 

 therefore in his walk he notices the flower and the 

 animal, their habitats, and their times of appearing ; 

 he discovers, without the aid of books, that there is 

 " a time for everything " a set time, and that in the 

 beautiful regularity which pervades nature, nothing 

 appears out of time or order ; the caterpillar is not 

 hatched before its food-plant is putting forth its 

 leaves ; the butterfly and the bat do not wake from 

 their winter's sleep when there is nothing for them 

 to eat ; everything is arranged. He notices, with 

 scarcely an effort, the peculiarities of the beasts of 

 the field, and the birds of the air ; he discovers the 

 marvellous connection between one species and 

 another, between one family and another, and the 

 dependence of all upon the Creator, so that 



" The whole round earth is every way 

 Bound by gold chains about the feet of GOD." 



In the Spring his eyes first see the swallow, his ears 

 are first greeted by the cuckoo, he is gratified by the 

 bursting forth of the vegetation into the most lovely 

 green ; iu the Autumn, while tints still more lovely 



