NATURE STUDIES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVI, Issue 8629, 11 December 1906, Page 2

NATURE STUDIES.

(By 0. E. Hugo)

The introduction of Nature Study in the schools will, if properly directed, form a source of the purest mental pleasures to the men and women of the future. The object of reading poetry should not be simply the the appreciation of poeriis in print; but the ability to see the poetry in life. And the object of Nature Study should not be simply to stock the memory with certain names and facts from dead books— ,; knowledge dried for sale and exportation"—but to inculcate a liking for an ability to interpret the varied physiognomy of Nature—face to face ; to study the character and habits of plants and animals. Plants differ in character as men. Some are bold and daring, and go everywhere; others are timid and shrinking, loving solitary places. How the looks of the poppy express the opium qualities of ths plant. It hangs its head ; drowsily nodding, and loves still, windless spots.

Perceiving the symbolism of Nature the ancients a c sociated flowers with all the deep joys and sorrows of human life. To us flowers and art are the luxuries of life. To the Greeks they were among the necessities of life. Flowers formed part of every religious c.remony, and of all public institutions and functions. At the theatre every "* one of the audience put a wreath of flowers on his or her head in place of the usual head covering. This wreath was either brought with them or was purchased at the entrance. The cultivation of flowers was ye y cxttnsively practised among the Greeks. There are about three hundred names of flowers in Greek literature, but only 40 can be identified. There are 30 plants represented on Greek coins. White and purple flowers were used for funerals ; and red and yellow for marriages. - The rose was sacred to Venus, aud to Har- [_ pocrates, the God of Silence. From this r comes the expression " sub rosa." The poppy was the flower of Phersephone. The violet was the badge of Athens: " the violet crowned the city." The victors in combats, and those showing valour in battle were crowned with parsley. So were the dead. And hence the expression: "He needs nothing but parsley," which meant, used about one very ill, that there was no no hope of his recovery. Quinces were indispensible to the Greek marriage ceremony. The bride and bridegroom had to bite in the same quince. Every Greek house had a garden. The flower garden was always separated from the vegetable garden by a hedge of rue. And Socrates made use of the expression: "You-don't go beyond the rue," to one who was ultra--1 idealistic, who dwelled among the flowers _ and did not enter the practical—the vegetable garden. A knowledge of Nature may throw light upon history. One science aids another. It is with science as what Goethe said about languages : '" Who knows one knows more." The tragedy here is the latest dramatic sensation in England. It deals with the poisoning of Germanieus by Nero. To one with a knowledge of ancient botany it is very plain that Germanieus was not poisoned, and that Nero is unjustly blamed for the crime ; just as he is unjustly blamed by history for the burning of Rome. We are told—and all. tha historians agree in the details - that Nero invited Germanieus to a banquet. A strong poison was mixed with wine placed before Germanieus. Before he had half linished the wine in his glass, he dropped down " blue in the face and dead." Now there is only one poison that will kill a man so quickly as that; namely prussic acid; and that was not known to the ancients. The strongest poison they knew was aconite ; which takes from one to four hours to produce death. No doubt Germanieus died from apoplexy. Not only a flower, but the sound of an insect, may send the imagination into the scenes of a picturesque past. The cicada, or, as it is commonly called, the locust, is the most classical of insects. It is found all around th, Mediterranean, where it differs only slightly from our New Zealand native insect. All the Greek poets from Heriod to Meleager mention the sound of the cicada with delight. Among the Greeks the cicada was the emblem of nobility ; and women belonging to the old families wore ornaments representing it. Hence the expression used about a man full of old-fashioned notions, and aristocratic prejudices: ''He has got his head stuffed full of cicadas." It is only the male cicada that makes a noise. And a poet in the Greek anthology says : " Happy cicadas; your females have no voice." It is doubted by some that the ancients knew opium. It is very certain that they did know it. _lekonos opos is undoubtedly opium. Homer's celebrated passage of the lotus eaters evidently alludes to opium. It could not mean the Egyptian lotus—the Nile lily ; for that has no narcotic properties. The Greeks, however, used the word lotus for several different flowers, as we use the word lily ; such as the Arum lily which is not a lily, and " the Chatham Island lily," which is a forget-me-not.