170 
NATURE NOTES. 
ducks, scaups, &c., come in quick succession. A long frost 
brings with it interesting scenes of northern bird life, as a great 
ice field is driven nearer and nearer to Heligoland, until it 
touches the island, and, as the author describes, the scene 
“towards north, east and south, farther than the eye can reach, 
there stretches the vast, white and unbroken ice field. In lea of 
its, for the most part, sharply defined margin, a perfect calm 
prevails, and the smooth surface of the sea is covered with 
myriads of ducks in glossy black plumage. ... I have 
known days on which I have seen, far as the eye could reach, 
in all quarters of the sky, swarms of birds crossing each other 
in all directions, and more astonishing still, on looking upward, 
have beheld above me a teeming multitude, so thick that the 
highest swarms presented the appearance of scarcely discernible 
clouds of dust.” 
Thus, amidst almost Arctic surroundings, in a severe winter 
the year dies out. 
H. J. Ormerod. 
A VILLAGE NATURAL HISTORY CLASS. 
OXCiy Y Natural History class was started last autumn. In 
3: our village school I announced my wish to form such 
^ class for boys, with the result that out of a number 
who wished to join it I selected seventeen, feeling 
doubtful if I could keep a larger number interested and orderly. 
We met in the infant school, on Fridays. I wanted chiefly to 
teach them about birds, how to know the different kinds by sight, 
and to give them a few ideas about the life history of each. My 
father’s History of British Birds (Rev. F. O. Morris) was my 
guide. In preparing my lesson, I read carefully through five or 
six of the birds, then wrote down shortly the salient points in 
the history of each, i.e., if it was rare or common, its food, use, 
&c., &c., then I also got up a chapter, or part of one, in Mr. 
W'ood’s charming book. The Brook and its Banks, omitting any 
portions which seemed not so suitable for my hearers. 
Thus prepared, I sat at a table with my seventeen pupils 
round me, and after the first Friday I began by asking questions 
about what they had heard the previous week, giving them 
marks according to their answers, i.e., when a question was 
rightly answered I put a dot after their names on a paper which 
I kept from week to week. After this I took the first volume of 
the Birds, showed the pictures of the five or six I had got up, 
and while they eagerly looked, told them all I could about each, 
and answered any questions they asked ; then read my piece 
from The Brook and its Banks, making a few passing com- 
ments, and asking the meaning of any hard words, by which 
