38 THREE KINGDOMS. 



Watch the minnows dart about in the crystal water; 

 count the daisy flowers, and may they prove oracles of 

 joy; blow off the dandelion's plumes to see if mother 

 wants you; test your love for butter by the glimmer of 

 the buttercup beneath your chins; find pretty pebbles 

 by the brook, and keep them bright in glasses of water; 

 gather brilliant autumn leaves, and press them for the 

 days when their colors will be in the sky; study the 

 beautiful crystals of the snow, lightly falling on your 

 sleeve as you plod to school; learn to love the music of 

 the rain, and the singing of the wind, and the moaning 

 of the sea. You may not discover many wonderful things 

 or things that you will recognize as wonderful. But 

 if the boys and girls in all the different places where 

 the Agassiz Association is known were to tell each other 

 about the common things in each one's own vicinity, 

 there will be wonder enough, I am sure. 



Yet you may find something altogether new. Did not 

 little Maggie Edward find a new fish for her father? 

 What? Never heard of Thomas Edward the dear old 

 shoemaker who used to make 'uppers' all day, and then 

 lie all night in a hole in a sand-bank, with his head and 

 g'un out, watching for 'beasts?' In that case, you would 

 do well to read the book called 'The Scotch Naturalist, 

 by Samuel Smiles. 



Nature must be studied out-of-doors. Natural ob- 

 jects must be studied from the specimens themselves. 

 The rocks must be broken open, the flowers must be 

 studied as they grow, and animals must be watched as 

 they live freely in their own strange homes. Quaint old 

 Bernardin de St. Pierre, author of 'Paul and Virginia,' 

 says: 



''Botanists mislead us. They must have magnifying- 

 glasses and scales in order to class the trees of a forest.' 



