_milkweed, boneset, peppermint, turtle-head, joe-pye-weed, jewel-weed, smartweed, and budding goldenrod_: Go down to the nearest meadow stream and gather for school as many of these flowers as you can find. Examine their seeds. _wind is a sower going forth to sow_: Besides the winds what other seed-scatterers do you know? They are many and very interesting. PAGE 6 “_Over the fields where the daisies grow...._” From “Thistledown” in a volume of poems called “Summer-Fallow,” by Charles Buxton Going. _seed-souls of thistles and daisies and fall dandelions seeking new bodies for themselves in the warm soil of Mother Earth_: On your country walks, watch to see where such seeds have been caught, or have fallen. They will be washed down into the earth by rain and snow. If you can mark the place, go again next spring to see for yourself if they have risen in “new bodies” from the earth. _sweet pepper-bush_: The sweet pepper-bush is also called white alder and clethra. _chickadees_: Stand stock-still upon meeting a flock of chickadees and see how curious they become to know you. You may know the chickadee by its tiny size, its gray coat, black cap and throat, its saying “chick-a-dee,” and its plaintive call of “ph[oe]be” in three distinct syllables. PAGE 7 _clock strikes twelve_: As we have thought of midsummer as the hour from twelve to one in the day, so the dead of winter seems by comparison the twelve o’clock of midnight. _shimmering of the spiders’ silky balloons_: It is the curious habit of many of the spiders to travel, especially in the fall, by throwing skeins of silky web into the air, which the breezes catch and carry up, while the spiders, like balloonists, hang in their web ropes below and sail away. CHAPTER II TO THE TEACHER I have chosen the fox in this chapter to illustrate this very interesting and striking fact that wild animals, birds and beasts, thrive in the neighborhood of man if given the least protection; for if the fox holds his own (as surely he does) in the very gates of one of the largest cities in the United States, how easy it should be for us to preserve for generations yet the birds and smaller animals! I might have written a very earnest chapter on the need for every pupil’s joining the Audubon Society and the Animal Rescue League; but young pupils, no less than their elders, hate to be preached to. So I have recounted a series of short narratives, trusting to the suggestions of the chapter, and to the quiet comment of the teacher to do the good work. _Every pupil a protector of wild life is the moral._ FOR THE PUPIL