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MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 



Pockets are emptied of curious-shaped flints (mostly curious 

 shaped and that is all !), coins, birds' skulls, sharks' teeth, 

 pieces of pottery, and other paraphernalia, and, even after school 

 hours, my house is a sort of receiving station for the flotsam and 

 jetsam of country objects whose identity the children are anxious 

 should be determined. I endeavour at all times to encourage 

 these young people to regard me as guide, philosopher, and friend, 

 and to so point the way as to let them realise the great joy which 

 the study of living things, as well as the mighty past, have brought 

 into my own life. 



FIG. 100. FOSSIL AMMONITE. 



A rudely-worked flint implement, a sprig of larch fir, a dead 

 flycatcher, a puss moth, an ammonite, a boar's tooth, a fragment 

 of a belemnite or fossil oyster, such are a few of the objects 

 before me on the study table as I write, recently brought 

 into me for identification by these young naturalists in the 

 making. 



A country walk is to them a scientific exhibition, full of interest 

 and wonder. Their keen young eyes detect things which older 

 folk pass heedlessly by. Objects which escape the notice of a 

 trained eye, even after a lifetime of devotion, are discovered 



