LIFE AND HISTORY OF A SALMON. 



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NATURE'S many-leaved book is open to all her children, 

 and in greater or in less degree we all enjoy her teaching. 

 A child, a peasant, or a philosopher, finds something to 

 interest him in the gambols of animals, the flight of 

 birds, the swarming hosts of insects ; the growth of 

 trees, plants, and herbs ; the properties of the air, the 

 fantastic pageantry of the shifting clouds, the light- 

 ning's flash, and the thunder's roar. 



It must be so ; we cannot shut our eyes to the beauty 

 and the beneficence by which we are surrounded. Al- 

 though we remember it not, our young souls were filled 

 with wonder when first we saw the moon walking in 

 her brightness ; and, so willing are we to make the 

 acquaintance of any living thing, childhood has no 

 dearer joy than to be the possessor of some favourite 

 beast or bird. This instinctive love of natural objects, 

 of which we know not the value or the use, does not 

 always grow with our growth, and develop itself in the 

 tastes and pursuits of the scientific naturalist. Our 

 education may be, and too often is, neglected. We 

 receive instruction only from the printed book instead 

 of from " the infinite book of Nature's secrecy," which 

 has charms for all, because its letters are not inky 

 symbols, the meaning of which we painfully acquire, 

 but the sparkling stars, the towering hills, and the 



