leaves before its blossoms, and why the willows, the elms, and the maples blossom before the coming of their leaves.

Though the practical part of the lessons and the work in thought development should be given due prominence, the side of moral and esthetic training should not be neglected. A child should learn how unrelenting and uncompromising Nature is in her punishment of him who disobeys her laws, how she rewards him that heeds them. For example, when a child has once seen the inside working of formica sanguinea, a species of ants common in Milwaukee County that capture and enslave other arts-he will be forcibly impressed and ready to assimilate what the teacher has to say on the inevitable degeneracy of the mistress ants and the ascendency of the slaves. This lesson may be associated with his history lessons on American slavery, and he will realize as never before how the abolition of the slave was necessary to save the white people of the south. When man disobeys the decree that he must earn his living by the sweat of his brow, he will one day find that Nature has meted out his punishment to him in his inefficiency. The association may be carried still further to the child's work in physiology where he learns how the unused part of his own body deteriorates; and thus he may be made to see how necessary it is for him to solve his problems, to do his work so that his brain and his body may develop to their greatest efficacy.

It has fallen to my lot to teach among the poor, people with homes usually devoid of artistic pictures, music, or literature, and my pupil's parents are often too ignorant or too busy with life's drudgery to give him any instruction that will lead to the formation of a beautiful thought or a noble ideal. Certainly his school should fill this breach for him, and if he is destined to become a factory laborer like his father, how much richer his life will be if, through his school literature, music, painting and nature-study, he feels a thrill of delight at the fleck of the tanager's feather or the melody of its song. What if he never hears the voice of ShumannHeink? He may listen to the mellow contralto of the bluebird. His eyes may never feast upon the grandeur of the western mountains, but the majesty of the flight of the great blue heron ascending from Milwaukee River is his own. I should dislike having a pupil of mine grow into the adamantean condition of an old farmer I once knew who gave me a ride one fall day along a country road. Suddenly a woods burst upon my view-a woods aglow in its

beauty of autumnal opalescence. The farmer seemed busy in the contemplation of his wagon bed. I did not like to have him miss a sight so beautiful, and I called his attention to the scene before us; whereupon he looked up, gave a sort of grunt, and quickly fell to musing on his wagon bed again as if he had been loath to have his attention diverted by anything so trivial as an autumn woods. It was pitiful to see him living in the midst of so much beauty with eyes incapable of seeing it.

I would have my pupil appreciative of the wonders of naturethe harmony in the community life of ants, the wonderful evolution. of the toad, the metamorphosis of a dragon-fly, the peculiar differentiations evolved by plants and animals to secure the best adaptation to environment; and thus he may learn to venerate the Power that makes each plant and animal, each stone and grain of sand fulfill its little destiny in the great scheme of our universe.

Extracts from Bulletin of the Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective Association

GAME CONDITIONS

Pheasants are less common than they have been and fewer are being killed this year. They are much shyer and do not flush as readily but run when disturbed. The bolder birds living along the roadsides have been killed and now the gunner must hunt to find the wilder and wiser ones that are hiding in the more remote and sheltered places. The severe winter killed many adult birds and the late, cold spring destroyed many eggs and young.

The Ruffed Grouse are to be found in fair numbers, especially in the western part of the State. There are not, however, as many as there were last year.

Bobwhite are reported to be fairly numerous on the Cape, in Plymouth County and in southern Bristol County. These splendid birds are practically extirpated throughout the central and western parts of the State. The five-year closed season in Essex County came none too soon and there is a growing demand among those interested in the conservation of our wild life that Bobwhite be afforded the protection of such a five-year reprieve throughout the State.

Deer are quite numerous, especially in the western counties. They are learning the necessity of avoiding man during the open season and after the first few days are difficult to approach.

By Dr. R. W. SHUFELDT

(Illustrated with photographs by the author)

As everyone knows who studies wild flowers afield, the collecting locality and the season are two very important factors to be taken into consideration. In most high northern latitudes the botanist finds but little to interest him, after the autumn days have surrendered, to the advance of all that winter brings with it. This is not the case, however, in the typically tropical regions, for there we find vegetation of all kinds flourishing throughout the year. Very well do I remember, when I lived in Cuba, in the suburbs of Havana, how the plant and tree growths astonished me; I saw orange trees in blossom, with dead-ripe oranges on the same tree. In the dense tropical jungle and forest there is a perpetual plant strife going on at all times throughout the entire year. Trees, great vines, hundreds of varieties of flowering plants struggle eternally with their neighbors to hold their ground, keep erect, and in many cases to maintain positions and attitudes whereby they may receive what sunlight comes to them.

In tropical forests I have seen trees where, when their fruit has ripened, it has fallen and lodged in one of the forks or crotches formed by limbs springing from either the main trunk, or from larger limbs. Such places often have a mass of decayed leaves or other rotten plant refuse in them, and here the ripened seeds of which I speak would take root, soon become young trees, and threaten the life of the parent tree. The roots struggle down to the ground, and with this added sustenance they soon become trees growing upon another tree, which latter begins to weaken under the burden it is called upon to support. Then along would come some parrot or monkey, and make a home in the parasitic tree. They carry nuts and other kinds of seeds there, and among them perhaps the seeds of some great vine. These in turn take root in some crotch or other, and the vine in time sends its roots down to mother earth. In a little while the vine spreads all over both trees, while a second vine, coming up from the ground, fills in all below as it creeps from limb to limb. The trees now die, rot, and fall This causes both vines to come down in a heap, and, the seeds of some more vigorous growth lodging upon them, the day comes when the vines, too, die as did the trees they strangled.

over.

This may happen before the last growth gains a good hold upon the ground; and, as the vine rots and crumbles, it in turn falls over, to die or to grow up as some sort of distorted weakling, or a crooked support for still other growths.

All this goes on continually from one year's end to another, and man but rarely penetrates into such places; though thousands of creatures, from a jaguar to a humming-bird, not to say thousands of different kinds of insects, spiders, reptiles, and other forms, live, and die in such wildernesses where, for the most part, the gloom of dense shadow reigns, and the light of day rarely enters.

In the United States we have no such tropical forests, and I have only seen them in Cuba and southern Mexico. Our tier of southern Gulf states support but subtropical forests, and in them the botanist meets with most interesting plant growths at all times of the year, as I can vouch for from my experiences in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. It is not to this belt, however, that I desire to invite attention, but to the strictly north temperate one that extends across the country to the Mississippi Valley, where the winters are never as severe as in the northern tier of states, or as mild as they are further southward Northern Virginia and South Maryland lie directly in this belt, and it extends westward to the region I have mentioned above. Here a very severe winter may send the sap of trees and shrubs far down, and eliminate every green thing above ground; or, on the other hand, a mild winter may allow many plants-quite a number of plants-to thrive in sheltered places from November until spring comes again. As I write these lines in my Washington home, we will have the first of November in three days; but if one thinks that botanizing in the open is over and done with, one had better think again and come nearer the truth next time.

To be sure, much of the country resembles the scene I here present in Figure 1; but even in such places the botanist will meet with much to study and admire. All manner of pond growths have gone to seed, as have numerous other plants which do not depend on the presence of water during the summer months. Here one may study the manner of many grasses of going to seed, also the cattails, pickerel weed, arum, and marsh mallow, with a host of other interesting growths.

As we pass to the fields and woods during these days in this region, it is truly surprising to note that some of the early summer