LEAF AND TENDRIL 



and Mr. Seton, aim to give the charm of art and 

 literature to their natural-history lore ; so to work 

 up their facts that they appeal to our emotion and 

 imagination. This is legitimate and a high calling, 

 provided they do not transgress the rule I have 

 been laying down, which Mr. Roberts does when 

 he represents the skunk as advertising his course 

 through the woods to all other creatures by his 

 characteristic odor, since the skunk emits that odor 

 only when attacked, and is at aU other times as 

 odorless as a squirrel; or when he says the fox is 

 too cunning to raid the poultry yard near its own 

 door, but will go far ofip for its plunder. I wish the 

 pair of foxes that had their den within easy rifle- 

 shot of our farmhouse the past season had acted 

 upon this policy. We should have reared more 

 chickens, and one of the foxes would not have met 

 his death in a charge of shot as he did while he 

 was chasing a hen through the currant patch in 

 broad daylight. 



The principal aim of the teacher of nature study 

 in the schools should be to help the children to 

 see straight, to develop and sharpen their powers 

 of observation, and to give them rational views of 

 animal mentality. 



When one of our nature writers, whose methods 



have been much criticised, says in the introduction 



to one of his books on animal life that he would 



"make nature study more vital and attractive by 



114 



