Many people seem to think that you cannot get Nature study unless you are out in the fields or woods studying the animals or noticing the plants, but you can do a great deal in town and even in your own room with others, or even by yourself.
For one thing, just think of the wonder of your own eye if you study it in the glass, and the delicacy of its construction; how it is like a bubble which a very slight blow would destroy altogether. Then from the eye go the nerves carrying back what it has seen of visible things to the brain, where the thoughts which are invisible take it over, the thought then gives the desire or the power to move. That is to say, your eyes show you something on the table and the invisible thought comes in your mind that you would like to catch hold of it, and the thought then makes the material sinews of your arm get to work and grasp it.
You cannot see your thought, but you know it is there, and you see the result of your thought when you grasp the thing. In the same way God is not visible, but all the same he is there, and you see the result when you do a good act. Sometimes you don’t do that good act, or you may do one that is not suggested by God. You may well feel ashamed when this happens and refuse to let yourself do it again. Therefore, try and think before doing a thing and ask yourself the question “Does God want me to do this?” If the reply in your mind says “Yes,” then do it; and if it says “No,” then don’t do it. It is not a difficult thing to live a straight and clean life if you only REMEMBER to think first and do after.
Stalking
How to Hide Yourself.—When you want to observe wild animals you have to stalk them, that is, creep up to them without their seeing or smelling you.
A hunter when he is stalking wild animals keeps himself entirely hidden, so does the war scout when watching or looking for the enemy; a policeman does not catch pickpockets by standing about in uniform watching for them; he dresses like one of the crowd, and as often as not gazes into a shop window and sees all that goes on behind him reflected as if in a looking-glass.
If a guilty person finds himself being watched, it puts him on his guard, while an innocent person becomes annoyed. So, when you are observing people, don’t do so by openly staring at them, but notice the details you want to at one glance or two, and if you want to study them more, walk behind them; you can learn just as much from a back view, in fact more than you can from a front view, and, unless they are scouts and look round frequently, they do not know that you are observing them.
War scouts and hunters stalking game always carry out two important things when they don’t want to be seen.
Background.—One is—they take care that the ground behind them, or trees, or buildings, etc., are of the same color as their clothes.