BROOKS] NATURE AT THE TALL PINES 197 



The avenues of approach open for development are many. To 

 one, nomenclature may make the appeal, to another, structure. 

 Again, there is the relation of the simple to the complex among 

 plants; and the points of similarity between a unicellular plant 

 and the same type of animal offer interesting analogies. 



To a girl new to the laws of nattire, routine nomenclature of 

 ferns, trees, flowers, and birds becomes monotonous unless some 

 idea of the relation of individuals can be brought to her. Walks, 

 the aim of which is to acquaint her with different plant societies 

 and on which she learns that a plant of the roadside society would 

 live most unhappily in a bog society, give names a meaning to her. 

 Blazing trails afford the lure of the new and introduce her uncon- 

 sciously to the flora of the deep woods. The life history of a fern 

 or moss plant, couched in simple language, may reveal a phase of 

 life entirely unknown to her, wonderful because of its minuteness. 

 The capsule of the moss awakens interest when its purpose is 

 laiown. 



A means of gaining interest which has been found satisfactory 

 •with the girl who has become familiar with names is the use of the 

 microscope to relate the simple to the complex. For the older girl 

 the structural likeness of the pleurococcus, the spirogyra, the moss, 

 the fern, and the flowering plant can be made to suggest interrela- 

 tion. To the younger girl, wonder at the revelations of the micro- 

 scope makes its constant appeal. 



Thus gradually there can be established a plant by which to 

 l^ridge the differences between plants and animals. The compari- 

 •son of a protozoan and an alga of the one-celled type serves to 

 •connect these two groups. A simple explanation of the physiologi- 

 cal functions, bases of many questions asked by the new student 

 of nature, tightens the bond of relationship. Protective resem- 

 blance and mimicry form another fascinating link. From this it 

 is but a short step to the absorbing life histories of our lower animal 

 friends. A walking-stick or a hill of ants may introduce an inter- 

 •esting lesson. And it is true that knowledge of the less obvious 

 increases the ability to appreciate the obvious. 



Few girls can spend a summer at camp and go away quite so 

 impervious to the beauty of a stony brook, to the grace of an elm, 

 or to the song of a bird as when they came. Names may still be 

 meaningless to them, but the development of the power of a])pre- 

 ■ciation must rem,ain and that is the purpose of vacation nature 

 study. 



