been the Editor's wish to assist in the development of the observation of Nature, feeling, as it is happily put by Professor Wilson, that " our moral being owes deep obligations to all who assist us to study Nature aright, for it is high and rare knowledge to know and to have the full and true use of our eyes. Millions go to the grave in old age without ever having learned it; they were just beginning, perhaps, to acquire it, when they sighed to think that they who look out of the windows were darkened,' and that, while they had been instructed how to look, sad shadows had fallen on the whole face of Nature, and the time for these intuitions was gone for ever. 'blessings are with them and eternal praise' who can discover, discern, and describe, the least as well as the greatest of Nature's works ;-who can see as distinctly the finger of God in the little humming-bird, murmuring round a rose-bush, as in that of the star of Jove, so beautiful and large,' shining sole in heaven."

But

To the lover of Nature such a task as the Editor has here attempted will commend itself. Let such as care for none of these things listen to the feelings of one of our greatest modern philosophers as they are set forth in his eloquent 66 Salmonia," and learn from him what charms

"How

are connected with the study of Nature. delightful is it in the early Spring, after the dull and tedious time of Winter, when the frosts disappear and the sunshine warms the earth and the waters, to wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent the odours of the bank perfumed by the violet, and enamelled, as it were, with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf, below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the music of the bee; and on the surface of the waters to view the gaudy flies, sparkling like animated gems in the sunbeams, whilst the bright and beautiful trout is watching them from below; to hear the twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; and, as the season advances, to find all these objects changed for others of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and the trout contend, as it were, for the gaudy may-fly, and till, in pursuing your amusement in the calm of balmy evening, you are serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush, and the melodious nightingale, performing the offices of paternal love in thickets ornamented with the rose and the woodbine."