NATURE AT FIRST HAND. 



When beauty, blushing-, from her bed 



Arose to bathe in morning- dew, 

 The sun, just lifting up his head. 



The vision saw and back withdrew 

 Behind a cloud, with edges red: 



"Till beauty," then he coyly said, 

 "Shall veil her peerless form divine 



I may not let my glory shine." 



C. C. M. 



ftS TO the pleasures derived from 

 pursuing the science of ornith- 

 ology in nature's interminable 

 range, there are delights the 

 field ornithologist experiences quite 

 unknown to his stay-at-home namesake. 

 For instance, what a thrill of pride 

 courses through him as he clings to the 

 topmost branches of the tallest pine 

 tree, making himself acquainted with 

 the rude cradle of the sparrow-hawk; 

 or when examining the beautiful and 

 richly marked eggs of the windhover, 

 laidbare andnestlessinthe magpie's old 

 abode, some sixty feet or more in the 

 branches of a towering oak. When, if 

 ever, do our closet naturalists inspect 

 these lovely objects in their elevated 

 cradle? Again, how elated the field 

 naturalist will feel when, after hours of 

 patient watching, he gets a sight of a 

 troop of timid jays, or the woodpecker, 

 busy in his search for food on some 

 noble tree! How elated when, scaling 

 the cliff's rugged side in search of sea 

 birds' eggs, or tramping over the wild 

 and barren moor, he flushes the snipe 

 or ring ousel from its heathery bed, 

 or startles the curlew from its meal in 

 the fathomless marsh! We might en- 

 large upon this subject adi?ifinitum, but 

 to a field naturalist these pleasures are 

 well known, and to the closet person- 

 age uncared for. Sufifice it to say, that 

 he who takes nature for his tutor 

 will experience delights indescribable 

 from every animate and inanimate ob- 

 ject of the universe; from the tiny 

 blade of grass to the largest forest 

 tree — the tiniest living atom, seemingly 

 without form or purpose, to its gigantic 

 relation of much higher development. 

 The pages of nature's mighty book are 

 unrolled to the view of every man who 

 cares to haunt her sanctuaries. The 

 doctrine it teaches is universal, preg- 



nant with truth, endless in extent, eter- 

 nal in duration, and full of the widest 

 variety. Upon the earth it is illustrated 

 by endless forms beautiful and grand, 

 and in the trackless ether above, the 

 stars and suns and moons gild its im- 

 mortal pages. — Rural Bird-Life in Eng- 

 land. 



The aspects of nature change cease- 

 lessly, by day and by night, through 

 the seasons of the year, with every dif- 

 ference in latitude and longitude; and 

 endless are the profusion and variety 

 of the results which illustrate the 

 operation of her laws. But, let the 

 productions of different climes and 

 countries be never so unlike, she works 

 by the same methods; the spirit of her 

 teachings never changes; nature her- 

 self is always the same, and the same 

 wholesome, satisfying lessons are to be 

 learned in the contemplation of any of 

 her works. We may change our skies, 

 but not our minds, in crossing the sea 

 to gain a glimpse of that bird-life which 

 finds its exact counterpart in our own 

 woods and fields, at the very threshold 

 of our own homes. — Cones. 



The boy was right, in a certain sense, 

 when he said that he knew nature when 

 she passed. Alone, he had hunted 

 much in the woods day and night. He 

 knew the tall trees that were the coons' 

 castles, and the high hills of the 'pos- 

 sum's rambles. He had a quick eye 

 for the smooth holes where the squir- 

 rels hid or the leafy hammocks where 

 they dozed the heated hours away. 

 The tangles where the bob-whites 

 would stand and sun themselves stood 

 out to him at a glance, and when the 

 ruffed grouse drummed he knew his 

 perch and the screens to dodge behind 

 I as he crept up on him. — Baskett. 



175 



