Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/253

Rh and this particular one can be easily, though slowly, accomplished through nature study.

The increasing interest in the study of nature and the publication of numerous illustrated popular books on the subject have been much feared by the friends of the wild flowers, who feel that wanton destruction will follow in the path of the enthusiastic young student. This fear has been somewhat justified in towns and cities where, in their eagerness to get specimens for the class, the thoughtless pupils have robbed the parks and gardens. Perhaps, too, in the country, the nature study program has been the means of reducing the numbers of our most attractive wild flowers. This was a natural result of the first step in a movement which will develop into a more carefully directed study. The popular teaching of ornithology in America has advanced farther than botany. In its early days collecting 'sets of eggs' and skins of birds were prominent features of the work and the extinction of the great auk was one of the results. But now, partly through nature study and partly through the influence of the Audubon Society, studying the habits of birds, naming them without a gun, photographing eggs in the nest and birds in the bush are the most popular aspects of the study.