Cylchgronau Cymru

%ht ^.beryattoyth IJoung Jtten'0 MAGAZINE. Editorial Board.—Prof. Lloyd Snape, D.Sc. (Chairman), Prof. Angus M.A., Mr. E. W. Thompson, B.A., Mr. J. Hugh Edwards (Secretary), and Mr George Davis, J.P., (Treasurer). Vol. 1. JANUARY & FEBRUARY, 1892. No. 5. EYES AND NO EYES. By Mr. J. H. Salter, B.Sc. HE time-honoured fable bearing the above title is doubtless familiar to most of my readers. It shows how a country walk may be to one person an expedition as brimful of m excitement and incident as any story of adventure in African forests, while to another, whose faculty of observation is undeveloped, it is a blank monotony destitute of every spark of interest; and this in spite of the fact that the same lanes and fields, the same birds and plants, have presented themselves to both pairs of eyes. Some miods naturally curn outwards, others inwards; uniformity in this respect is not to be looked for or desired. Still, it is a pity that a " constitutional " is so frequently nothing more ; that legs and lungs only are the better for the exertion; and that the world of wonders which we brush against at every turn is often unnoticed and uncared for. These remarks apply especially to the student of natural science, who too often fails to establish a connection between the facts which come under his notice in lecture-room or laboratory and the practical commentary upon them which nature provides, copiously illustrated, at his very door. Yet examination-results, if they teach anything, show how much higher a value is attached to a knowledge of things rather than of the names of things. The study of natural history may seem to run counter to athletics. Shop hours are long, a student's holidays in term time not superabundant; hence exercise must be taken in a concentrated form on the football field or cricket crease. There is much to be said for this view of the case ; yet the advantages of having two strings to one's bow, of being something of a naturalist as well as something of an athlete, are undoubted. How often our otherwise delightful climate may transform the best of foot¬ ball fields into a condition suggestive of an Irish bog or of the Dismal Swamp. Then, " Othello's occupation gone," the gamesman pure and simple is like a dock-labourer on strike; while the man who is on terms of intimacy, even if it be a mere bowing aquaintanceship, with one of the 'ologies, is never more in his element. Often the football player cares little for cricket or tennis, and is thus ready for fresh interests just when nature is most ready to come to his aid. Or his occupation