38 Handbook of Nature-Study 



2. Compare the bill of the hen with that of the duck? What are 

 the differences in shape ? Which is the harder ? 



3. Note the saw teeth along the edge of the duck's bill. Are these 

 for chewing? Do they act as a strainer? Why does the duck need to 

 strain its food ? 



4. Could a duck pick up a hen's food from the earth or the hen 

 strain out a duck's food from the water? For what other things than 

 getting food do these fowls use their bills? 



5. Can you see the nostrils in the bill of a hen? Do they show 

 plainer in the duck? Do you think the hen can smell as keenly as the 

 duck? 



Supplementary reading — The Bird Book, p. 99; The First Book of 

 Birds, pp. 95-7; Mother Nature's Children, Chapter VIII. 



"It is said that nature-study teaching should be accurate, a statement that every good 

 teacher will admit without debate; but accuracy is often interpreted to mean complete- 

 ness, and then the statement cannot pass unchallenged. To study 'the dandelion,' 'the 

 robin,' with emphasis on the particle 'the' , working out the complete structure, may he 

 good laboratory work in botany or zoology for advanced pupils, but it is not an elemen- 

 tary educational process. It contributes nothing more to accuracy than does the natural 

 order of leaving untouched all those phases of the subject that are out of the child's reach; 

 while it may take out the life and spirit of the work, and the spiritual quality may be 

 the very part that is most worth the while. Other work -may provide the formal 'drill' ; 

 this should supply the quality and vivacity. Teachers often say to me that their 

 children have done excellent work with these complete methods, and they show me the 

 essays and drawings; but this is no proof that the work is commendable. Children 

 can be made to do many things that they ought not to do and that lie beyond them. We 

 all need to go to school to children." — "The Outlook to Nature," L. H. Bailey. 



'Weather and wind and waning moon. 



Plain and hilltop under the sky, 

 Ev'ning, morning and blazing noon, 



Brother of all the world am I. 

 The pine-tree, linden and the maize. 



The insect, squirrel and the kine. 

 All — natively they live their days — 



As they live theirs, so I live mine, 

 I know not where, I know not what: — ■ 



Believing none and doubting none 

 What'er befalls it counteth not, — 



Nature and Time and I are one." 



— L. H. Bailey. 



