Boys Who Are Naturalists

Whilo esteoming instruction in biology, the London Spectator is of the opinión that it can not turn a boy into a field naturalist. The real out-door observer is bom to observution, and no scientific training can supply the skill which comes instinctively to many a fchool boy with a taste for bird " nesting" and snake hunting. The Spectator says : The boy who will spend a half-holiday crouehed motionless in the lush herbage of a river bank, that he niay trace the grasshopper lark to hor curiously eoncealed treasure, is already a field naturalist. Such boya abound in our public schools. As a rule, it is noturious that they hale Greek verbs, and are scarely fonder of geometiical problems. They are set down as dunces, and if the assistant master whose duty it is to adniinister a hebdotnadal throe hours of what is called "science" takes them in hand, he probably has not the süghteat sympathy in their pursuits, and at the end ofacoupleof leatoaá succeeds in couipletely disgusting tbeui by wliat he tells tuem of chemical formólas or the reflex aotion oí nérvea. Botanista get on better with tbeir pupils - that is, systeinatio botanista do, for we are not so sure of the success of physiological botanista in this particular. They teil theni how such or such a plant may be distinguished, and where it should be looked for. They rejoice with their learners when the prize is found, and gladly lisien to the whole story of its finding. So, too, with gcologists, or, rather, palajontologists. They congratúlate the tyro on the nautilus or the encrintehe brinjes home or the saurean vertebra he bas unearthed, and explains to him its bearing on the geolugical " horizon " to which it belongs. With zoology it is otherwiHc. The art of teaching that science in schools acceptably (to use an old-faahloned word) is yet to be learned by the teacher. Henee our youthful zoologists are not led to followthcir naturul titstes to any adyantage. l(!.tructioo of ammtl lifo seeuis to be the only course lft open to them, and it soon becomes all-powerful. If opportunitiea are allowed thom, they grow up into lion hunters. If these opportuniües are denied, uiost of thélïi lose their love of the study altogcthi t ; but a few liiuit their energies to pitming bo butterflies or the bcetles of their own country, or perhaps set about foriiiinj: b OolIeotioB of British birds, with tho help ol the vüliige barber, who combines with lii.s own useful callingthat yery UbIqh (in tiino cases out of ten) avocation oallcd a tazideTmüt's. A while ago a party of lynchers, down Sonth, postpomd the hangfng fivo minutes, to alliiw tliu victim timo to finish smoking a cigar. This proven that tliu us(i of tobáceo prolonga lifo.