A Field of Interest and Delight

Then, as for the ‘living creatures,’ here is a field of unbounded interest and delight.  The domesticated animals are soon taken into kindly fellowship by the little people.  Perhaps they live too far from the ‘real country’ for squirrels and wild rabbits to be more to them than a dream of possible delights.  But surely there is a pond within reach – by road or rail – where tadpoles may be caught, and carried home in a bottle, fed, and watched through all their changes – fins disappearing, tails getting shorter and shorter, until at last there is no tail at all, and a pretty pert little frog looks you in the face.  Turn up any chance stone, and you may come upon a colony of ants.  We have always known that it becomes us to consider their ways and be wise; but now, think of all Lord Avebury† has told us to make that twelve-year-old ant of his acquaintance quite a personage.  Then, there are the bees.  Some of us may have heard the late Dean Farrar* describe that lesson he was present at, on ‘How doth the little busy bee’ – the teacher bright, but the children not responsive; they took no interest at all in little busy bees.  He suspected the reason, and questioning the class, found that not one of them had ever seen a bee.  ‘Had never seen a bee!  Think for a moment,’ said he, ‘of how much that implies’; and then we were moved by an eloquent picture of the sad child-life from which bees and birds and flowers are all shut out.  But how many children are there who do not live in the slums of London, and yet are unable to distinguish a bee from a wasp, or even a ‘humble’ from a honey-bee!