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THE OOLOGIST. 



"The groves were God's first temples" — truly 

 said, 



And kindly felt by many worthy poor; 

 They of thought sublime and good intent, 



Oft kept by social want from sainted door. 

 The door which opens, but to golden keys 



Of wealth and standing in society, 

 Nor cares for aught but the increasing fees 



Which blazon pious notoriety. 



The woods, wherein we walk with blithesome 

 tread; 

 Each flower a lecture breathes; each song 

 is given 

 By feathered dwellers of the woodland glade 

 In grandest, deepest hymnal praise to 

 heav'n. 

 Where thrilling inspirations deeply sown 



From intercourse with Nature' magic forms ; 

 Linked with our being; to our fancies grown, 

 Our loved surroundings have their many 

 charms. 



The trees are emblems to us of our life; 



In every sphere our aim is to expand. 

 Our lives are but mending terms of strife 



With one 'divine intent,' as nobly planned. 

 The birds, forever sacred in our breast- 

 Emblematic of love and friendship dear; 

 A panacea to that grave unrest 

 We feel when carping enemies are near. 



We would not scare the well-dressed pious fool 



Or knave, who loudly enters with the throng 

 The so-called house of God, vain-glorious man. 



To help his bought salvation cause along. 

 Nay ; rather would we take him by the hand 



And walk him forth through woods and pas- 

 tures green; 

 Where the Creator's works in our fair land 



In never ending beauty may be seen. 



Then with respect; in accents born of praise 



To noble forests rearing high their boughs— 

 We'd tell him, "here our temple now we raise; 



The roof of green the highest power bestows. " 

 And if he joined that great and growing school 



Of nature, old as time, yet ever new ; 

 Where one's not governed by set church's rule, 



A convert we would have both firm and true_ 



Morris Gibbs. 



The Eg-g- Collector. 



When I was young my father sjave 

 me a quasi-scientific book, written after 

 the style of a story, entitled "Tommy 

 Try and What He Did in Science." I 

 read and reread this book with great 

 interest, for I was somewhat of a young 

 scientist myself, although my taste 



tended chiefly toward chemistry and 

 physics. 



Tommy was a fair specimen of the 

 amateur naturalist of today. He was 

 "everything by starts and nothing 

 long." His experiences, as narrated, 

 cover a wide field of plant collecting, 

 boat building, chemistry, conchology, 

 and bird and egg collecting. The aver- 

 age school boy has doubtless repeated 

 Tommy's exertions in the egg line. 

 Tommy had sixty-five eggs, which he 

 kept in a pine box with a glass cover, 

 and, as he thought, they looked very 

 pretty when nested in white cotton. To 

 my mind, however, they would have 

 looked much prettier in their original 

 nests. A friend gave him so many 

 more eggs that he had to keep them in 

 a washstand drawer, and one day, as 

 he was bringing them down stairs, he 

 tripped, and the drawer, eggs and all, 

 went over the banister, only three or 

 four eggs surviving the shock. This 

 discouraged him for some time; but, 

 unfortunately for the birds, he recover- 

 ed his courage, and he was still collect- 

 ings at the end of the book and his six- 

 teenth year. 



In my own school days, egg collect- 

 ing was one of the prevailing fads, and 

 or Saturdays parties of boys, some- 

 times but not always accompanied by a 

 na.;ural history instructor, used to go 

 out into the surrounding country and 

 hunt birds nests. Their trips extended 

 from one or two to twenty miles from 

 the city, and as number counted full as 

 much as rarity, the more domestic birds 

 — I mean those which are less fearful of 

 man and build by choice near houses or 

 in open places where they are easily 

 accessible to prying eyes and hands— 

 these birds suffered most. There were 

 few boys who had not dozens of Robins' 

 eggs, while the eggs of crows and the 

 like were remarkable for their absence. 

 The fad lasted for a month or so. Eggs 

 were carried around in collar boxes and 

 cigar boxes, or even strung on strings, 



