2 THE OPEN BOOK OF NATURE 
works, and trust that my book may be a real help and 
guide to you in your studies. It often happens that 
the study of Nature is laid aside in favour of cricket, 
football, hockey, tennis, and other sports. I have 
nothing to say against any innocent and manly game, 
but I do think it is a pity when these things are 
indulged in to the negligence of a study of Nature 
which, properly prosecuted, will be found to be a 
recreation of the highest type. Nature-study is a 
pursuit which calls all our faculties into action ; it 
makes us observe, remember, reason, and think ; 
it takes us out of stuffy rooms into the open air ; 
it makes us walk, wade, row, and even swim ; it 
develops inventive genius, gives us eyes to see 
interesting things everywhere; it appeals to the 
sense of beauty, form, and colour, and, above all, 
makes us reverent by leading us to look up from 
Nature to Nature’s God. There is no living plant 
or animal, be it never so common, that will not repay 
study, and provide, if intelligently observed, quite a 
romantic story. A spider and its habits will give 
us quite as much interest as pigmies or cannibals 
in some far-distant land; and no more wonderful 
story has ever arisen out of the imagination of man 
than is daily enacted in the lives of ants, bees, and 
wasps. 
The flowers, even of the commonest kinds, are 
quite as interesting in their habits as more highly 
developed creatures. What could be commoner 
than a daisy, but what a remarkable story it has to 
tell! Kor myself, I have never ceased to be inter- 
ested in the wonders it displays. You read about 
the great battles of the world’s history, the terrible 
