When she lifted up the leaf she had a picture of its shape, and of all its veins and edges. It looked like a nice engraving. She put the same kinds of leaves on the same sheet,--as the leaves of the rose family on one, the leaves of maples on another, and so on. Under each leaf she wrote its name. Such a collection of leaf-patterns is fine in a cabinet. So is a collection of dried flowers,--called an herbarium. Your mother or teacher could show you how to make one. You will find on the way-side, or in field and garden, some of those wonderful nests, built by spiders, wasps and bees, of which you read in the First Book of Nature Readers. And at the sea-side, you can find crabs, shells, and bits of coral, sponge and sea-weed. Did you ever think what a pretty sight a row of pieces of many kinds of stone makes? Have you thought that stones are just hard, homely, brown things? Have you noticed that marble is sometimes snow white, sometimes black, or veined with many colors? The granite is gray; sandstone is red, or gray, or purplish. Slate is black, purple, or veined in many shades. Other stones are black, red, yellow, brown, green, in fact of nearly all hues. Each kind of stone has its own name. Some come from one place only, some from another. There is a reason why each kind has its color and grain. As you grow older, you may like to study about rocks and stones. Then how nice it will be to have on hand a collection of specimens. A collection of birds’ nests is very fine. As we study in this book a little about birds, you will see how many kinds of nests there are. If you have a cabinet you can put into it one nest of each kind that you can find. Put into each nest one egg of the kind that belongs to the nest. Then put into the nest a little card, with the name of the bird, and the number of eggs commonly laid in each nest. Be sure you do not break up the nest of a sitting bird. That is cruel. To keep the eggs you must blow them. Make a hole with a large pin in each end of the egg. Then blow hard, steadily in the pin-hole in the large end. All the inside of the egg will fly out at the hole at the other end. Our next lesson will be about grasshoppers and their cousins. As the bodies of grasshoppers shrink when they dry, it is well to stuff them. How can you do that? Put a little cotton wool on the end of a short thread, threaded in a long, coarse needle. The grasshopper should have been dead an hour or two, before you try to stuff it. Take it by the head and pass the needle through from the back end of the body, and bring it out under the breast. If you draw it gently, the cotton will go in with the thread. Several pieces of cotton drawn in, in this way, will fill the body enough to hold it in shape. If the cotton is wet in alcohol, or camphor, it is better. Worms, spiders, toads, minnows, and such soft-bodied things, must be kept in clear glass bottles, filled with alcohol.