NATURE STUDY RECORD BOOKS. 31 



growing on or convenient to the school grounds. Observa- 

 tions were made by all concerned in the evenings and 

 recorded. Specimens of leaves, twigs, fruits, etc., were taken 

 from trees whose locations were noted. Notes and specimens 

 were compared and discussed in class. It was decided that 

 certain characters indicated by form, color, texture and margin 

 of leaf, structure of bud, method of branching, color and 

 rupture of bark, afforded means of bringing individual trees 

 into groups which were provisionally named from a prominent 

 character. Wood was obtained from individual examples of 

 the groups and examined in respect to closeness of grain and 

 resistance in cutting. Blocks were weighed in air and com- 

 pared with the weight of water they caused to overflow when 

 submerged in a filled vessel. The collective inference was 

 that the groups might be re-named in terms of the quality of 

 the wood as follows : — Pale hard, dark hard, white soft, serrate 

 soft, milky soft and ash-leaved soft. All the specimens of 

 leaves, buds, etc., were re-labelled. The interest was main- 

 tained or increased. Some had fruit of three or four kinds 

 and desired to see the fruit of all ; none had the flowers. So 

 the study was resumed in the spring, and the members of the 

 class were pleasantly surprised to discover such striking 

 emphases of the differences of the groups as were revealed by 

 the flowering parts. The serrate-soft had petals, the white- 

 soft lacked them; some flowers were arranged in clusters, 

 others in long racemes, while the milky-soft alone was 

 noticeably fragrant. The fruits of the earliest reached their 

 characteristic shape and color before the latest shed their 

 blossoms. The systematic literature of the maples was then 

 consulted ; the descriptions of the groups were recognized and 

 the Latin binomials bracketed with the common names. The 

 manuals consulted named other kinds of maple than those 

 studied. Inquiry was made where any of the other species 

 could be seen, and some of the students were interested 



