356 CIVIC BIOLOGY 



others may be helped or benefited by them ? llo\v do you 

 know that someone else has not discovered the same thing 

 before you ? Has your father or mother, or some other 

 member of your family, discovered anything of value to the 

 community? Do you know of anyone in your town or city 

 who has discovered anything ? If so, can you tind the story 

 in print or can you go to the person and get the story at 

 first hand ? 



Do we know of anyone in the United States or Canada, 

 South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, or Africa, who has 

 made notable biological discoveries ? Who is he, and what 

 is the story of his work ? l 



Kinds of discoveries. Discoveries may be big or little ; they may be 

 easy, made at a glance, or even stumbled on by accident, though in 

 this case one must be intelligent enough to know what he has found, 

 and be able to think what his discovery may mean to the world 

 (" Accidents never happen among the Hottentots," it is said) ; or 

 the}* may require years of application, complicated apparatus, and 

 costly laboratories. 



A little girl of eight, by working from daylight till dark, discovers 

 that a bobwhite will eat 1286 rose slugs in a day, and that when fed 

 abundantly on insects, she will lay eggs. These are valuable little 

 discoveries and have doubtless influenced efforts to protect the bob- 

 white. A young woman devotes three years to studying the foods 

 of the bobwhite, and publishes what is probably the most complete 

 statement of the food of any bird. This will exert still more influ- 

 ence for bird protection and must hasten the day when we shall have 

 enough bobwhites to reduce weed seeds and insect pests, and it may 

 suggest to others similar studies of other birds. 2 



1 As early as practicable, when the course is well begun and interest 

 aroused, bring up these questions and make them the main subject of a 

 lesson period ; or appoint a date and ask the class to prepare brief written 

 statements in answer to the questions, and have them read and discussed. 

 Invite some local discoverer to visit the class and tell of his aims, methods, 

 and discoveries. 



2 Margaret Morse Nice, "Food of the Bobwhite,"' Journal of Economic 

 Entomology, June, 1910, p. 295 ff. 



