INTRODUCTION. Xlll 



game ever played on earth, for the Creator who 

 planted the garden eastward in Eden knew well what 

 would please the childish heart of man when He 

 brought all the new-made creatures to Adam 'to see 

 what he would call them.'" 



Emerton's "Life on the Sea-shore," and his 

 "Structure and Habits of Spiders; "Hervey's charming 

 "Sea-mosses," Gray's "How Plants. Grow," Romyn 

 Hitchcock's "Synopsis of the Fresh-water Rhizo- 

 pods," Jordan's "Manual of the Vertebrates," Apgar's 

 "Trees of the Northern United States," are delight- 

 ful books that approach the ideal nearer than any 

 others published in this country. But there is so 

 much for our learned scientists to do in this compara- 

 tively unexplored land of ours, that they may have no 

 time to stoop and lend a hand to those who would like 

 to enter a little way into the attractive world of science, 

 from which faint • but pleasant rumors occasionally 

 come. These learned men are all courteous and com- 

 municative when personally approached, but what boy 

 or other young person with an inclination towards 

 "bugs and things" would be willing, or, indeed, would 

 know how to seek aid from these celebrated investiga- 

 tors ? And if the student is alone in a country place 

 where Nature smiles her sweetest but where there are 

 no libraries, arid no human being to consult, except 

 perhaps "the minister," how then shall he learn the 

 name of the flower, the stone, or the bird that attracts 

 his attention ? "The minister" is usually poor autho- 

 rity on such subjects, and the boy, after wondering 

 and investigating in an awkward and boyish fashioni 

 soon gives it up, when he might have become a lover 

 of Nature, and perhaps a lover of something even bet- 

 ter than Nature. 



