the test of all knowledge.

Along with this study of the familiar objects about us the student may
well combine some reading which may serve to show him how others have
been successful in thus dealing with Nature at first hand. For this
purpose there are, unfortunately, but few works which are well
calculated to serve the needs of the beginner. Perhaps the best
naturalist book, though its form is somewhat ancient, is White's
Natural History of Selborne. Hugh Miller's works, particularly his Old
Red Sandstone and My Schools and Schoolmasters, show well how a man
may become a naturalist under difficulties. Sir John Lubbock's studies
on Wasps, and Darwin's work on Animals and Plants under Domestication
are also admirable to show how observation should be made. Dr. Asa
Gray's little treatise on How Plants Grow will also be useful to the
beginner who wishes to approach botany from its most attractive
side--that of the development of the creature from the seed to seed.

There is another kind of training which every beginner in the art of
observing Nature should obtain, and which many naturalists of repute
would do well to give themselves--namely, an education in what we may
call the art of distance and geographical forms. With the primitive
savage the capacity to remember and to picture to the eye the shape of
a country which he knows is native and instinctive. Accustomed to
range the woods, and to trust to his recollection to guide him through
the wilderness to his home, the primitive man develops an important
art which among civilized people is generally dormant. In fact, in our
well-trodden ways people may go for many generations without ever
being called upon to use this natural sense of geography. The easiest
way to cultivate the geographic sense is by practising the art of
making sketch maps. This the student, however untrained, can readily