PREFACE 
Birds, plants, trees, insects, soil, clouds, and stars sur¬ 
round us all our lives. They belong to rich and poor, to 
the man living in the tropics, or in the frozen north. 
Once our minds are opened to some of the fascinating 
things that science has found out about them, once we 
have learned to look at them with seeing eyes, during all 
the rest of life, they will be a source of endless delight. 
They become a living treasure, which time only increases, 
and misfortune never destroys. 
Whatever studies a child may eventually pursue, no 
hours can be spent more profitably than learning the 
absorbing ways of the everyday world of Nature which 
surrounds him. When the habit of observation is ac¬ 
quired, education is assured. The purpose of this book 
is to arouse an intelligent curiosity about this world of 
Nature—to give some of its most significant and dra¬ 
matic facts, some main principles which govern its be¬ 
ing. But at the same time, it has been so conceived that 
turning from this book, almost without being conscious 
of how it has happened, the child forever after will see 
Nature through new and more understanding eyes. The 
authors have found by years of teaching and reading 
nature stories to children, that nothing appeals to their 
imagination more than the real life that blooms, flows, 
