Mr. Aima B. Morton puts it in this way: Why do children like colored pictures to abstraction? Because the child is father to the man. And what do we love more than tone and color, music and pictures? It is an inherent quality, the soul of life leading us back to nature, the All-mother. We have hung up pictures and maps of a poor quality before the class for years, and then lectured away at them _ad infinitum_ and _ad nauseam_, thinking, because we understood, that the child also understood. But this is not so. We nearly always suppose too much, especially in lower grades. Diesterweg said: "If you speak about a calf in the school room, bring it in and show it." This principle is still true to-day. All things in nature, as far as possible, should be present _in propria persona_. Where not possible, we must try to approach that ideal by bringing the very best, and natural pictures of the objects, that is colored ones, and the vivid imagination of the child does the rest. It does not see the picture, the object itself is there, nature has entered the school room. So we learn that bird study, aided by color photographs, is psychologically the most valuable means to the attainment of school ends. It is attractive to the young mind because it furnishes material which rises most readily to the focal point in the mind. It relieves teacher and pupil of the strain attendant upon work where it is difficult to get the class to "pay attention." It is chiefly adapted to growing minds. No matter how strongly the matured mind with its powers of abstract thinking may be drawn toward it, it is yet more attractive to the mind that has not been trained to any sort of restraint. To get the best results, bird study should not be conducted with a view to storing the child's mind with scientific knowledge, nor for the sole purpose of employing it effectively to teach language and other branches of school effort. But it should be pursued as a mode of activity which develops mind, acknowledging the fortunate circumstance that school learning and bird knowledge will both be acquired at the same time, although they are not the direct objects of the pursuit. [Illustration: SHELLS. _Shells kindly loaned by J. M. Wiers._ CHICAGO: A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.] =SHELLS AND SHELL-FISH.= _Scientific_ _Common_ _Named_ _Where_ _Name._ _Name._ _by._ _Found._