76 /AT WINTER. 



taught me to be considerate toward and respect 

 the rights of every living creature. So it hap- 

 pened that I came to love even every creeping 

 thing ; and with love came knowledge. But the 

 names of things ! Until he knew its name, Tho- 

 reau looked upon a flower, however beautiful, as 

 a stranger, and held aloof. Certainly one feels 

 a great lift in his pursuit of knowledge as soon 

 as he learns the name of an object ; and until 

 then, however interesting that object may be, it 

 baffles him. Let the observer, if an adult, re- 

 member, and the child be assured, that every 

 creature has a name, and that it can sooner or 

 later be determined ; and now what remains is 

 to so closely examine it that, when opportunity 

 affords to describe it to a specialist, or a descrip- 

 tion is found in a book, the creature will at once 

 be recognized. 



Years before I had access to Audubon's or 

 Wilson's American Ornithology, I was delight- 

 ed, one summer day, with a large bird that played 

 bo-peep with me in the orchard. I watched it 

 carefully, studied to repeat its cries, and then at- 

 tempted to describe it. The bird was pronounced 

 a creation of my imagination, and my labors re- 

 warded with a lecture on romancing ; but long 

 afterward I recognized the bird in a museum, 'and 

 found that'I had seen a rare straggler from the 

 Southern States. But nothing of all this bears 



