PART I
THE OUTDOOR WORLD
Deep in the woodland you will hear,
If you but lend attentive ear,
A murmurous talk from time to time,
And all the words will run to rhyme.
By light of sun and light of star,
The wind and trees the gossips are;
In whispers to the questioning trees
The wandering wind tells all he sees,
For he can roam and roam and roam
While all the trees must stay at home.
The Book Of Nature Never Disappoints
Avery great man once said that the Book of Nature is the only book whose pages never disappoint the reader. What did he mean? Theodore Roosevelt could have told you; he found the world of birds, animals, and flowers so fascinating that even in his busy life he spent many hours studying the wild things of Nature.
Now of course, if you are going to read the Book of Nature, you must understand its language. You can learn its language by reading and observing. Men and women who have spent years studying the out-of-doors have written about the wonderful things they have seen.
Here are some of the strange things they have told us about:Bees were the first paper-makers. A certain kind of flower eats meat. There is a deep-sea fish that carries a lantern. Birds save the lives of all of us by eating insects which would in a few years destroy all plants, from which we get our food.
As you learn more about flowers and birds and animals, you will become interested in preserving them instead of destroying them. Perhaps you can tell some other people about reasons why we should not pick wild flowers or collect birds' eggs.
In this first part of your book you will see the outdoor world through the eyes of some famous students of Nature, and you will learn some things about saving wild life. These stories are only samples, put in this book to help you have eyes that see when you go out of doors, and to let you know what fascinating reading awaits you in books that tell about the world of Nature.