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and especially, which cannot be too much guarded against, in the company of the profane and dissipated. The pages of this volume, the Author hopes, will show them, at least in some small degree, how he would wish them to open to the delighted eyes of the young, the ever-blooming, and ever-instructive leaves of the volume of creation. He is assured, that the scenes it describes, with a very little pains, may be carried out into action, since the book is only a transcript of what has constantly taken place in his own family. He is indeed greatly mistaken, if the habit of using the eyes and the understanding, in the way he has recommended, will not be a perpetual source of gratification and instruction.

The Author also wishes to acknowledge another object which he has in view in his publication,-it is, to extend more widely a feeling of humanity. He has never known a youth kill flies wantonly, or trample disdainfully on insects, or treat animals with cruelty, unless he was entirely ignorant of their formation and habits. He has always observed, that a moderate knowledge of natural history, has compelled an individual to look on even the meanest of the works of God, with a kind of reverence. He is ready

to say, whatever creature meets his eye,-How wonderful is its colouring,- how delicate its wings,-how surprising is its habits, I must step aside, I cannot crush so much that is interesting. There is room enough for it and for me, in the large mansion of the world which God has built. On this important subject, the intelligent reader will thank me for the following beautiful sentiments from a letter of the late Sir W. Jones::

"I never could learn by what right, nor conceive with what feelings, a naturalist can occasion the misery of an innocent bird, and leave its young to perish in a cold nest, because it has gay plumage, and has never been accurately delineated or deprive even a butterfly of its natural enjoyments, because it has the misfortune to be rare and beautiful. Nor shall I ever forget the couplet of the Persian poet Ferdausi,

'Ah, spare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain,

He lives with pleasure, and he dies with pain.'

"This may be only a confession of weakness, and it certainly is not meant as a boast of peculiar sensibility! but whatever name may be given to my opinion, it has such an effect on my conduct, that I never would suffer

the cocila, whose wild native wood-notes announce the approach of spring, to be caught in my garden, for the sake of comparing it with Buffon's description. Even when a fine young pangolin was brought to me, against my wish, from the mountains, I solicited his restoration to his beloved rocks, because I found it impossible to preserve him in comfort at a distance from them."*

And if, only in a slight degree, the young may be really benefited, the great interests of humanity promoted, and the blessed Parent of all good glorified, the writer will rejoice, and be grateful, that the pleasant hours which he has employed in the production of these volumes, have not been spent in vain.

An index is appended, for facility of reference to the various subjects of the work.

Southampton,

Lord Teignmouth's Life of Sir W. Jones, p. 899

THE

JUVENILE NATURALIST.

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SPRING.

WALK I.

CONTENTS.

THE SEASONS IN DIFFERENT CLIMATES-THEIR VARIED CHARMS-HOW THEY ARE PRODUCED-ST. PIERRE'S STRAWBERRY ROOT-NUMBER OF PLANTS THE PRIMROSE-COWPER'S LINES ON THE SEASONS.

EDWARD. Mamma thinks we had better take our walk, before we sit down to our lessons this morning.

MR. PERCY. I think so too; it is so mild and fine, though the first of March, that we may regard it as the first morning in Spring. We have great reason

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to be thankful to divine Providence, who has assigned us so great and so pleasing a variety in the succession of the seasons.

Then is it not so everywhere, Papa?

No, Edward; in the frigid, and in the torrid zones, or in the coldest and warmest parts of our globe,-there are but two seasons; in Canada, Lapland, and the most northern parts of Sweden, the inhabitants have only winter and summer.

eight months in the year.

The former lasts about

I should not like eight months of winter, Papa! Perhaps not; yet winter, through the divine goodness, even to the people who reside in the coldest regions, is not without its enjoyments. I was about to observe, that the transition from winter to summer; from frost and snow to great heat, is very sudden in the northern parts of the world. A traveller who spent some time in Lapland tells us, that the snow and ice began to melt about the twenty-third of June; and that they were quite gone at the close of the month. On the ninth of July, the fields were all

or,

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