The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

P.N.E.U. Conference Natural History Club

Which had to be promptly hammered to pieces to get out the treasure. In one clay cutting we got some fine specimens.

In the autumn and winter, we have been able to have monthly lectures for the members, who now number about sixty, and for their friends. One of these lectures was on "Forest Trees," the oak being fully described; another was on Snakes, and entitled "Ugly Customers or a chat on the lower forms of life"; another, "A chat about the animals in the Zoo." Another contributor gave us one on "Thomas Edward, Scotch Cobbler and Naturalist." The last lecture was given in April, and was entitled "Fable, Nonsense, and Common Sense," and was based on Aesop's Fables connected with animal life.

This summer the fortnightly rambles are again taking place, and those who took the girls last year undertake the boys this time. I pass round to each child a paper containing the chief points I have wished them to notice, also a list of the flowers they can find during the month. We are hoping to have a small exhibition in October, the exhibits to consist of pressed flowers and ferns, seeds and seed-vessels, sea shells and seaweeds, grasses, mosses, Natural History diaries, paintings and drawings of separate flowers (mounted), fossils and other geological specimens. Prizes will be offered for the best collections etc., and of these several have been promised already, as well as a collection of stones and flint implements, minerals, etc. A good many of our members take in the delightful botanical magazine called the "Minute-book" kept by elder children, which first came out in the form of a quarterly magazine in March last, edited by Miss P. Allen. I should like to take this opportunity of recommending it to all here who wish to make Botany a real delight to children. It contains a series of papers by an Oxford M.A. on "Our Public Botanical Gardens," and another series on "Botany with the Microscope," by Dr. Godfrey.

I look forward to a year of good work in our Bedford Natural History Club, and if the boys and girls can be led to see "that nothing walks with aimless feet," to know something at least of the works of the great Creator in His Universe as taught by this fair world of ours, our highest wishes will be satisfied.

Miss Simpson read a paper on "Local Clubs."