THE GLORIES OF THE SPRING. 9 



vert ; but I would teach them to watch the 

 development of wild life in woods and fields, and 

 to chronicle the ways of all wild creatures. Let 

 us therefore do all we can to popularise the study 

 of Natural History ; to guide the younger gene- 

 ration to the wilderness rather than to the 

 dancing rooms and theatres, for in doing so we 

 elevate the mind to a far loftier standard, and 

 save the body from many of the deadly perils 

 with which nineteenth-century civilisation sur- 

 rounds it. 



Musing thus, we are apt to forget the ebbing 

 away of time until reminded by the settling gloom 

 and the noisy Blackbirds that night has come 

 again. We must therefore reserve for our next 

 chapter some of the most prominent and stirring 

 incidents of bird life in the spring. 



