[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE] Nature Readers. SEA-SIDE AND WAY-SIDE. No. 3. BY JULIA McNAIR WRIGHT. “And if ever the way grew long, And his strength began to fail, She sang a more beautiful song, And she told a more wonderful tale.” LONGFELLOW’S “_Birthday Poem to Agassiz_.” Illustrated by C. S. King. BOSTON, U.S.A., D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS. 1894. COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY JULIA MCNAIR WRIGHT. Norwood Press: J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith. Boston, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE. In presenting a third volume of the Nature Readers to the children of our land, and to their parents and teachers, I feel it both a duty and a delight to thank those who have so cordially and sympathetically welcomed a new departure in School-Book Literature. I have not sought to model these Readers upon any pattern previously set, but to make them the outcome of what I have learned, by observation, of the receptive and retentive powers of children. I desired to impart useful and needful knowledge, in a fashion which should not be burdensome, and which should strongly impress young minds. I have had no hobby of book-making, nor of style to follow. My one idea has been to benefit the child, and to that end I have directed my whole effort. I sing an old song when I say, that we are a nervous race, and our children are more intensely nervous than their parents. The antidote for this nervousness, and its consequent train of disasters, is to be found in the open air, in healthful out-of-door exercise, in the serene calm of nature, in the peaceful joys which the investigation of nature affords us. If we can open wide the gates of “the fairy-land of science,”--if we can bring the child near to the heart of nature,--if we can absorb his hours of leisure, and many of his hours of brain-work, in the study of nature out of doors, we shall have done much toward making him robust in body, sound in mind, cheerful of disposition, and useful in the future. THE AUTHOR TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS. Once more we are going out together by the Sea-side and the Way-side. We shall now learn more of our Great Mother, the Earth, and of her many children. Once I read a tale of a queen, who gave all that she had to her youngest son, and ordered all his brothers and sisters to be his servants. I did not think that that was fair. But something very like this has happened to us in this world. We human beings are the last and youngest of living things, and yet all the rest serve us, and are for our use. In this book I shall tell you the secret of this. I shall tell you of the flowers and trees; they are the earth’s eldest children. I shall tell you how they have taken insects and birds for their partners, and have gone into business, to feed the world. We shall look at those pretty partners in their work and play. The birds have some lovely stories to tell us in their songs.