X INTRODUCTION. 



i. 



surrounding him. Such books, if correct and helpful, arc wor- 

 thy of all praise. That there is a desire for them, even in this 

 fair land of ours, is evident by their importation, and their ap- 

 pearance on the counters of the booksellers and the shelves of 

 the public libraries. But they are seldom adapted to our needs. 

 Their descriptions are commonly too general and diffuse, their 

 writers pay more attention to literary style than to the im- 

 parting of definite information, and the text too often bears 

 internal evidence of having been made to suit certain pictures 

 owned and necessary to be utilized by the publisher. That 

 similar and better books on the life in American fields and 

 streams, and American sea-shores, are so few is much to be re- 

 gretted. There ought to be small and untechnical hand-books 

 adapted to "all capacities, even the meanest," as our forefa- 

 thers used to put it, and in all departments of animal and vege- 

 table life ; books in which the beginner could learn the names 

 of things. " I do beseech you, what is your name?" is the oft- 

 asked question, cot only by the beginner in the use of the 

 microscope, but by the more advanced student in other depart- 

 ments as well. Ernerton's "Life on the Sea- shore," and his 

 " Structure and Habits of Spiders ;" Hervcy's charming " Sea- 

 mosses," Gray's " How Plants Grow," Romyn Hitchcock's 

 "Synopsis of the Fresh-water Rhizopods," Jordan's "Manual 

 of the Vertebrates," are delightful books that approach the 

 ideal nearer than any others published in this country ; indeed, 

 there are no others. There is so much for our learned scien- 

 tists to do in this comparatively unexplored land of ours, that 

 they may have no time to stoop and lend a hand to those who 

 would like to enter a little way into the attractive world of sci- 

 ence, from which faint but pleasant rumors occasionally come. 

 They arc all courteous and communicative when personally ap- 

 proached, but what boy or other young person with an inclina- 

 tion towards "bugs and things" would be willing, or, indeed, 



