There are many varieties of birds and insects to be seen, plenty of wild flowers, mosses, and lichens in the lanes, and in my own grounds all kinds of cultivated flowers.
Numbers of young people come to stay with me in the course of the year, and naturally, when I am taking walks with them, and we are admiring trees and flowers, or a sweet-voiced bird begins to sing, questions arise about the names of various plants and songsters. I confess I am often surprised to discover the very limited knowledge of elementary natural history or botany that is possessed by young girls who in other branches of study are intelligent and well-informed. It grieves me to think that the instructive book of Nature is thus disregarded, and its lessons left unlearned, by thousands who would be much happier, and have many more resources to fill up leisure moments, if they knew more about the everyday things which surround them in the country.
Even if it is the lot of many young people to live in towns, still, when they pay visits to their friends at the seaside, or in the country, there are ample opportunities for natural history studies, and by means of books these studies can be carried on when they return home.
I will try and describe one of the subjects which my young visitors always discover to be full of interest, namely, the study of trees.
Such a book as “The Forest Trees of Britain”[[3]] will supply the names of all our ordinary trees; and, when taking a ramble in a country lane or garden, if a perfect leaf of each species of tree is gathered, well pressed, and dried between sheets of blotting paper under a heavy weight, there will be found pleasant occupation for some wet day spent indoors in arranging these specimen leaves in a large blank book.
Space should be left to write the English and Latin name of each tree, whence it was imported, and some of its chief uses. If, later on, the autumn-tinted leaf of each species can be obtained, and a coloured drawing made of its catkin flower, then in time a really charming and valuable book will be formed, which a girl will feel pleasure in showing to her young friends, and thus others will be led to fill up their leisure time with instructive pursuits of this kind.
Drying and arranging the leaves is only the first step towards a more intimate knowledge of this subject. The exquisite beauty of autumn-tinted leaves attracts the attention of the most unobservant. One longs to preserve them, and for years I used to try various methods of pressing and drying them with but very partial success. Now, however, I have devised a plan by which their fleeting colours are so exactly imitated that my friends constantly mistake the painted leaf for the real one. As it may afford pleasurable occupation for some of my readers, I will briefly describe the process.
The materials required are but few: a common slate, some fine drawing paper, a cyclostyle[[4]] roller, and a bottle of the ink which is sold with it. A small quantity of the ink should be placed on the slate, and the roller passed to and fro until it is slightly and evenly inked. The leaf should then be placed on a flat, hard surface, and the roller passed firmly over it so as to leave a little ink on the under side of the leaf to mark the veins. The leaf should then be reversed, with the ink side downwards, on a piece of drawing paper, and the roller firmly passed over it once or twice. The result will be an exquisite faint imprint of the exact shape of the leaf with all its veins. After a few minutes it will be ready to be tinted in water colours, so as to exactly resemble the various hues in the real leaf. The colours should be very moist, and rather floated into each other, as in this way one can most readily attain the delicate gradations of tone. When finished the leaf should be neatly cut out with fine scissors, carefully following the outline of the notches, which vary so much in different trees, and give character to each species. When such painted leaves are gummed into a blank book the effect will be found to be wonderfully real. The album should be large enough to allow of four or five leaves, each representing a different stage in the coloration—yellow, pink, crimson, and all other tints which belong to each special tree. A page should of course be reserved for each set of specimens, and the English and Latin name, the date, and any other particulars written at the bottom of the page will add to the scientific value of the collection.
The various galls which are found on each species of tree will alone furnish a wide field for study. The ink with which I am now writing is the product of an oak-gall which is imported in large quantities from Asia Minor; many kinds are of great value in dyeing; and the life-history of the numerous gall-flies is most curious and interesting.
Careful drawings of the buds of trees as they open in spring will reveal the delicate plaiting of the tiny leafage within. We can then discern how some leaves are folded lengthways or in half, others curled up spirally or fluted; we shall see how the embryo leaves are protected by more than a dozen scales, often lined with silky down, and then, as in the case of the horse-chestnut, still further guarded from the winter’s cold by an outer coating of resin.