REPORT OF FIELD MEETINGS 1 69 



of their parks, which they admire so much and guard so 

 religiously by little admonitions such as " keep off the grass," 

 "do not pluck the flowers," etc!, at every turn one takes in 

 visiting them. We want the toilers of the towns to come into 

 the country, enjoy the clear bright sunshine, and inhale to the 

 full capacity of their lungs the pure air with its oxygen newly 

 re-created by the action of the greenness of the vegetation and 

 the sunlight ; and further we want them to learn as much of 

 Nature's book as they can ; but we earnestly hope they will 

 desist in their pillage and plunder, and allow Nature's creatures 

 to remain unmolested, so that posterity may be blessed with 

 the same pleasures and enjoyments of rural life we ourselves 

 experience. 



Personally, I do not advocate collecting for the sake of 

 proudly becoming the owner of a cabinet of dried or dead 

 specimens. To my mind the aim of a true naturalist is to see 

 and study the object in its habitat as a living creature. To 

 watch a plant spring from a seed, develop a stem, branches, 

 leaves, blossoms, fruit, and lastly seed, and to notice the shape 

 of its leaves, colour of its flowers, insects visiting it, soil it 

 grows in, and so on, is more instructive and supplies us with 

 greater delights and deeper study : or again to note the time 

 the rare bird of passage arrives in the spring, its search for a 

 mate and choice of a nesting place, its care and attention in 

 rearing its family, the food it gives its nurslings, its own "bill 

 of fare," its use to the farmer and gardener, its own peculiar 

 manner of flight, its notes or song, its flocking propensities, 

 and its time of departure in the autumn, is better and nobler 

 work than merely to get possession of its skin or its clutch of 

 eggs. It is only when pursuing nature study in this way that 

 we find out how little of this beautiful world we know, in com- 

 parison with the vast amount we do not know, and that we 

 find our natural life far too short for the investigations we are 

 anxious to pursue. 



