4 

 NATURE'S WORKS GENERALLY. 



There can be no denying that the study of natural history opens out a wide field for 

 profitable employment for the mind. Take, for instance, the subject of the migration of birds. 

 We look at a map, or a globe, and trace these as far as we can, at the same time receiving 

 a lesson in geography, which perhaps does none of us any harm. This brings us face to face 

 with the various shapes of land and water presented, and the marvellous distribution of each, 

 which must attract the attention of any thoughtful person. Every portion of each peculiar 

 form of each affords the appropriate home for quantities of Nature's living productions, some 

 of which are local only, whilst others are merely occasional and more or less temporary 

 visitors. These productions increase or decrease in quantity as Nature requires them ; those 

 disappearing from off the face of the globe entirely, not being further required by her, it may 

 be apparently, primarily, through man, and he may be her recognised agent for their annihila- 

 tion ; or it may be through other and what might be considered more direct natural means ; 

 but man, I think, could not effectually annihilate a species, unless with Nature's approval, 

 directly or indirectly. 



The whole world seems to teem with, I was going to say, life, meaning animal life, but I 

 may as well add vegetable also, as in some of the endless variety of forms of life it is scarcely 

 possible to distinguish one from the other (we say vegetation lives and dies), some of the 

 corallines being, in appearance, vegetable ; but, though formed like it, are merely the shelter of 

 animals, and formed by them, but we may well consider in what manner. How an atom can 



