Report of the Executive Committee 85 



influence and teaching, a number of our lads have taken up the systematic 

 study of one or more branches of natural science, and, as young men, 

 have become active workers." 



The Federal Department of Agriculture, Washington, sent 

 a collection of Nature-study leaflets, illustrating the work 

 carried on at the various centres in the United States which 

 are interested in the question. 



From the Philadelphia Normal School came an improved 

 edition of the exhibit shown at the Paris Exhibition of 

 1900, illustrating in particular the correlation that can be 

 introduced between outdoor observation and the ordinary 

 details of school work. 



Professor Bickmore, of the American Museum of Natural 

 History, New York City, exhibited in this group a unique 

 series of photographs and slides in connection with his 

 scheme of "Visual Instruction". These illustrated the use 

 to which photography can be put in order to bring before 

 us objects when they themselves cannot be seen or ob- 

 tained, and to record the changes taking place in con- 

 nection with movement or growth. Nothing could be 

 finer than the exquisitely-coloured photographs showing the 

 unfolding of the lotus flower, which, luckily, could be 

 compared with the actual blossoms, then opening in the 

 Victoria Regia House in the Botanic Gardens. Again, 

 never before, in all probability, has a photograph been 

 seen of birds, taken during flight, which shows the position 

 of the thumb or bastard wings. 



Supplementary There were two exhibits coming under 

 Exhibits. the heading of "flower cultivation". 



Mr. E. F. Hawes, F.R.H.S., the chief 



instructor in the practical gardening school of the Royal 

 Botanic Society, exhibited an interesting collection illus- 

 trating the students' work. The pictures representing the 

 various operations of grafting were one of the features of 



