SYSTEMS FOUNDED IN NATURE. 



115 



eye ; or sundry dun-colored caddis flies, modest, delicate neu- 

 roptera, with finely fringed wings and slender feelers, create 

 doubts as to whether they are not really allies of the clothes 

 moth, so close is the 

 resemblance. 



Thus the student is 

 constantly led astray by 

 the wan ton freaks Nature y 

 plays, and becomes seep- i 

 tical as regards the truth 

 of a natural system, 

 though there is one to 

 be discovered; and at 

 last disgusted with the 

 stiff and arbitrary sys 

 tems of our books, a 

 disgust we confess most 

 wholesome, if it only 

 leads him into a closer 

 communion w T ith nature. 

 The sooner one leaves 

 those maternal apron- 

 strings, books, and learns to identify himself with nature, 

 and thus goes out of himself to affiliate with the spirit of the 

 scene or object before him, or, in other words, cultivates 

 habits of the closest observation and most patient reflection, 

 be he painter or poet, philosopher or insect-hunter of low 

 degree, he will gain an intellectual strength and power of inter 

 preting nature, that is the gift of true genius. 



The Ant Lion and adult. 



