x INTRODUCTION 



the teacher of the poet give him Nature. Make a 

 poet of the child, who is already a poet born. 



How can so essential, so fundamental a need be- 

 come a mere fad of education ? A child wants first to 

 eat, then to play, then he wants to know particu- 

 larly he wants to know the animals. And he does 

 know an elephant from a kangaroo long before he 

 knows a Lincoln from a Napoleon; just so he wants 

 to go to the woods long before he asks to visit a 

 library. 



The study of the ant in the school-yard walk, the 

 leaves on the school-yard trees, the clouds over the 

 school-house roof, the sights, sounds, odors coming 

 in at the school-room windows, these are essential 

 studies for art and letters, to say nothing of life. 



And this is the way serious men and women 

 think about it. Captain Scott, dying in the Antarc- 

 tic snows, wrote in his last letter to his wife : " Make 

 our boy interested in natural history if you can. It 

 is better than games. Keep him in the open air." 



I hope that these four volumes may help to inter- 

 est you in natural history, that they may be the 

 means of taking you into the open air of the fields 

 many times the seasons through. 



DALLAS LORE SHARP. 



MULLEIN HILL, February, 1914. 



