xiv yATURB-HTUDY. 



fingers, with a slug slowly crawling across the surface. 

 "Say, Oh say, teacher, what is this?" 



"You dirty child! That nasty slug; throw it away. 

 It is nothing but a slimy snail. Throw it away, I tell 

 you, and go wash your hands; yes, and your face, too. 

 A nasty slug 1 The idea ! And call me Miss Jones, the 

 next time you address me, and not 'teacher'." 



The most celebrated naturalist in America, a man 

 whose fame was world-wide, a man who could take a 

 single fossil bone and from it build up an entire animal, 

 that learned man stood with a boy in a sunny field one 

 day under the blue sky, and with the soft breezes of 

 spring stirring his gray hair and tossing the boy's curls. 

 The man was Joseph Leidy, and the boy, — but that is 

 of no importance. The boy held a leaf in his hand, and 

 a slug was slowly crawling across the surface. In silence 

 he held it toward the man, who stooped until his time- 

 stained locks mingled with the boy's untouched ringlets, 

 and he said, "Oh, the pretty creature! Some persons 

 dislike snails except when they eat them in France, but 

 to me they are graceful animals. This kind is well 

 named 'slug', because it is really sluggish and slow in its 

 movements, but there is a world of information to be 

 had from even so lowly a creature as a snail. See, there 

 on the back is a little low hump covering all the shell 

 that it has. But if we look about on the bushes and the 

 willows, we shall find some with complete shells to pro- 

 tect the whole body. Turn him over, Jimmie, for a 

 moment." And with a blade of grass that great and 

 learned man, pointed. "Now watch," he said. "Did 

 you see him open his breathing pore? Look, Jimmie, 

 and you can see him take a long breath. Did you notice 

 the little black aperture appear and close again? It is 



