NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 141 



vided you live where the snow falls. But you will have some kind of 

 a winter no matter where you live. Don't miss it its storms, its 

 birds, its animals, its coasting, skating, siiowshoeing, its invitations 

 to tramp the frozen marshes and deep swamps where you cannot go 

 in the summer, and where, on the snow you will catch many a glimpse 

 of wild life that the rank summer sedges will never reveal. Don't 

 stop with these ten suggestions ; there are a hundred other in- 

 teresting things to see. And as you see them, write about them. 



CHAPTER V 



TO THE TEACHER 



Let this chapter be read very close to the Christmas recess, when 

 your children's minds are full of Christmas thoughts. This uncon- 

 ventional turn to the woods, this thought of Christmas among the ani- 

 mals and birds, might easily be the means of awakening many to an 

 understanding of the deeper, spiritual side of nature-study that 

 we find in Nature only what we take to her; that we get back only 

 what we give. It will be easy for them to take the spirit of Christ- 

 mas into the woods because they are so full of it ; and so it will be 

 easy for them to feel the woods giving it back to them the very 

 last and best reward of nature-study. No, don't be afraid that they 

 are incapable of such lessons, of such thoughts and emotions. Some 

 few may be; but no teacher ever yet erred by too much faith in the 

 capacity of her pupils for the higher, deeper things. 



FOR THE PUPIL 



PAGE 46 



These lines of poetry you all know But who can tell who wrote 

 them? Where did he live and when? 



gum swamp : See description of such a swamp on pages 262-263 

 of the author's " Wild Life Near Home." This is the tree known 

 as sour gum, more properly tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica or uniftora). 

 cardinal grosbeak: Commonly called "cardinal," or " redbird." 



PAGE 47 



Holy Day : What was the oldest form of our word " holiday " ? 

 ilex: Ilex verticillata, the black alder, or winterberry, one of the holly 

 family. A low swamp bush covered with red berries all winter. 



