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The Naturalist. 



substantiation of the negative position he has placed himself in. A few 

 more details respecting the habits and distribution of this bird, as 

 observed by Mr. Varley in connection with his assertion that it does not 

 breed in a certain moorland district, would doubtless be interesting to 

 many readers of the Naturalist. — George Roberts, Lofthouse, Wake- 

 field, Feb. 5th. 



A SCIENCE LESSON IN SELF-HELP. 



The first number of a second volume of an instructive literary 

 venture — " The Natural History Journal " — conducted by the 

 Societies in Friends' Schools, lies before me. Everyone ought to 

 wish it success, not merely because evincing the decided impulse 

 given of late to the encouragement of science-study in our schools 

 (a matter in which the Friends have ever been pioneers) ; but on 

 account of the honest and clearly-reliable character of the records 

 sent in from the various amalgamated Societies, whose copious monthly 

 notes fill, for the most part, eight pages of small type. The observations 

 embrace astronomy, botany, meteorology, and ornithology. Space will 

 not allow of quotation, but I must say that the page and a haK of botani- 

 cal items, if kept up with the same regularity for the nine years to come 

 as they have been for the last twelve months, sent as they are from so 

 many wide-apart localities, could not fail to result in an array of facts 

 whose value, as a basis for generalisation, could hardly be over-estimated. 

 Moreover, from a statement in the opening address may be gathered the 

 fact that this journal has been self-supporting during its first year of life. 

 Above 170 contributors, 63 of them boys and girls (intelligent beyond the 

 average, possibly), have enriched the first volume ; over 600 copies of 

 each issue have been sold, and a balance carried over towards the printer's 

 bill in 1878. Think of that ! But a journal whose internal resources 

 are so great, whose working subcribers are so numerous, could hardly fail 

 of the success it deserves. And therein is a lesson in self-help to our 

 Yorkshire societies they would do well to heed. Why does not every 

 member of our Naturalists' Union make it not merely a matter of duty to 

 subscribe to his Union's journal, but also a matter of conscience to send 

 up, for publication in that journal, each month one genuine observation 

 of his own ? All could, if they tried, do that — it is easier than many 

 fancy, for ungarnered facts in the storehouse of Nature lie around us 

 everywhere — but they don't ! If they could but see it, the loss is not 

 alone that of their fellows. How easy, and in the result how profitable, 

 to begin to-morrow a systematic series of questions in regard to every 

 stone, every plant, every bird, &c. , they see, asking first themselves and 

 then others, and last this journal, if they cannot find out else — What's 

 your name 1 How do you come to be where I found you ? By what means, 

 from where ? And lastly : Now you are here, how do you manage to live, 

 if this is'nt your original abode ? A series of questions which I fancy I 

 have seen somewhere suggested by the late Charles Kingsley, though I 



