mentary school be occupied with brief consideration of the many nature-study objects the children in a class collect here and there and bring to school. A few interesting remarks by the teacher about each of a dozen or more objects on such an occasion can do much to keep children alive to the things about them. In the second place, it is desirable that important topics, as the horse, cow, cat, song-bird or maple-tree, be treated at length. Often in a third or fourth year class one month of these periods per week may be too little time for one such topic. The former is extensive, while the latter is intensive study.
As to method: Mere description or observation should be subordinated to function as a rule. It usually is uninteresting to begin the study of a plant or animal with mere observation or description, and it is unnecessary. It is far better to start off for the solution of some important problem, and in general to study under the influence of problems. For example, if the squirrel is the subject, a class can set out to study how he manages to live through the winter, how he gets food in the summer. The answers to such questions will require much close observation or description, and at the same time preserve more organization among the multitude of facts collected.
A few of the many good books dealing with the facts of nature are the following: Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley; Sharp Eyes by Wm. H. Gibson; Wild Animals I Have Known by Ernest Seton Thompson; The First Book of Birds by Olive Thorne Miller; Neighbors with Wings and Fins by James Johonnat; and Birds and Bees by John Burroughs. A few of the best helps to teachers are Nature Study and Life by C. F. Hodge (the best); Nature Study by W. S. Jackman; Special Method in Elementary Science and Nature Study Lessons, both by McMurry.
Nature-Study with the Camera. Since the perfection of modern photographic apparatus, — the hand-camera with its quick shutters, rapid dry-plates and films, — the hunting of wild life with a camera has become a fascinating recreation. Even in sporting circles there is a call to substitute the camera for the gun as the sportsman's weapon. Forest and Stream, arguing for such a change, says: “Every camera hunter must admit that more immediate and lasting pleasure is afforded in raking a running deer from stem to stern at twenty yards with his 5 x 7 bore camera than in driving an ounce ball through its heart at 100 yards. Then think of the unlimited freedom of this noiseless weapon. No closed season, no restriction in numbers or methods of transportation, no posted land; but you can pull on a swimming deer or an elk floundering in the snow, take a crack at a spotted fawn, bag the bird on its nest or string your cameras out like traps, with a thread across the runway, and gather in the exposed, game-laden plates at nightfall without any scruples about being called a pot-hunter or a game-hog.” In introducing a book of wild life illustrated with the camera President Roosevelt wrote: “The older I grow, the less I care to shoot anything but ‘varmints.’ If we can only get the camera in place of the gun and have the sportsman sunk somewhat in the naturalist and the lover of wild things, the next generation will see an immense change for the better in the life of our woods and waters.”
But this use of the camera has proved of distinct value in aid of nature-study, providing the means of gaining a clear and intimate knowledge of wild animals, birds and reptiles, their appearance, their haunts, their habits and all the phases and conditions of their life. Moreover, the young are thus enabled to become direct observers and students of animated nature; for not only have naturalists, as Chapman, and camera-hunters, as Dugmore and Wallihan, brought from the Rockies, from the forests and waters of Canada and from the shores and everglades of Florida the trophies of their skill and patience in a wealth of photographic pictures of every variety of wild animal, running, climbing or feeding, and of birds and wild fowl in flight or at rest, but amateurs, even schoolboys and girls have become expert in securing photographs of the more familiar birds and animals to be found in field and forest accessible to every village and town. With the development of habits of close observation, quick perception and careful analysis required in this delightful pursuit, the love of nature is begotten, and the career of a naturalist is often determined then and there. Teachers who lead their classes to field and wood will find the camera a most interesting and helpful adjunct to these excursions. Stalking a bird, a rabbit, a squirrel or a gopher, while simple and tame to the expert, is to the school boy an experience full of interest. Soon he will come to note in what surroundings the bird or animal is found, what it is doing, if feeding what sort of food it is eating, the place and character of its nest or burrow. The pictures when developed recall these details and fix them in the mind, and the boy thus becomes possessed of a fund of valuable information obtained at first hand. With increased experience these excursions may take wider range. The mature lad will give zest to his vacations by becoming a hunter of wild life with camera and flashlight.
The pictures which follow give suggestions of the thrilling experiences and show the splendid rewards which come to the man who hunts with a camera.
