Weather clear and bright on Candlemas day, Feb. 2nd and therefore ground-hog saw his shadow Heard crows cawing—Feb. 18th. Last year—Jan. 26th Saw first robin—March 14th Last snow—April 28th There is scarcely anything in nature that is not interesting and in some way useful. Perhaps you will say “How about a bat?” As a matter of fact a bat is one of our best friends because he will spend the whole night catching mosquitoes. But some one will say “he flies into your hair and is covered with a certain kind of disgusting vermin.” Did you ever know of a bat flying into any one’s hair? And as for the vermin science tells us that they are really his favourite food so it is unlikely that he would harbour a colony of them very long. The subject of snakes is one in which there is more misinformation than any other common thing. There are only three venomous kinds of snakes in America. They are the rattlesnake, copperhead and moccasin. All of them can be distinguished by a deep pit behind the eye, which gives them the name of “pit vipers.” The general impression that puff adders, pilots, green snakes or water snakes are poisonous is absolutely wrong, and as for hoop snakes and the snake with a sting in his tail that all boys have heard about, they are absolutely fairy tales like “Jack and the Bean Stalk” or “Alice in Wonderland.” We have all heard about black snakes eight or ten feet long that will chase you and wind themselves around your neck, but of the many hundreds of black snakes that a well known naturalist has seen he states that he never saw one that did not do its best to escape if given half a chance. Why so much misinformation about snakes exists is a mystery. Nature study has recently been introduced into schools and it is a very excellent way to have the interesting things pointed out to us until our eyes are trained to see for ourselves. The usual methods of nature study may be roughly divided into, 1. Keeping pets. 2. Bird study. 3. Insect study. 4. Systematic study of flowers and plants. 5. Wild animal life. The basis of nature study consists in making collections. A collection that we have made for ourselves of moths or flowers, for instance, is far more interesting than a stamp or coin collection where we buy our specimens. If we go afield and collect for ourselves, the cost is practically nothing and we have the benefit of being in the air and sunshine. One kind of collecting is absolutely wrong—that of birds’ eggs, nests or even the birds themselves. Our little feathered songsters are too few now and most states have very severe penalties for killing or molesting them. A nature student must not be a lawbreaker.