2 LETTER I. 



placed the same piece of sugar on a part of the table 

 near which the ants were in the habit of crossino-, 

 and when she saw one of them approaching it, she 

 gently placed her finger in his way, so as to obstruct 

 his passage without alarming him ; the ant paused, 

 looked around him. and then took a new direction, 

 not exactly towards the sugar, but near it ; the 

 lady again opposed his passage gently, and at last, 

 bv makinof him take a sort of ziofzag- direction, 

 tacking, as it were, at every few steps, the ant was 

 unconsciously brought to the sugar without being 

 frightened. Once there, he examined the glittering 

 rock attentively, touched it wdth his antennae, broke 

 off a morsel, and hastened away with it to the ant- 

 hill ; whence he presently returned at the head of a 

 host of his comrades, by whom the rest of the sugar 

 was quickly carried off. 



So it is with science and the young who have to 

 acquire a knowledge of it. Let them be once alarmed 

 at the aspect of their new pursuit, and it is almost 

 impossible to restore their confidence ; but there are 

 few who, if led to it insensibly, will not perse- 

 vere till they have made themselves masters of the 

 subject. 



The most discouraging parts of Botany to a be- 

 ginner, consist either in the numerous new and 

 strange names one has to learn the meaning of, or in 

 the minuteness of the parts by which plants are distin- 

 guished from each other, or in the great multitude of 

 species of which the vegetable kingdom consists ; and 

 it must be confessed, that there is something seriously 



