Nature study · Anna Botsford Comstock
Anna Botsford Comstock's classic guide to looking closely at birds, animals, insects, plants, rocks and sky, for children about 6 to 12 with a parent. Each of her 234 lessons has a guide you can follow step by step, with the right page of the book beside it.
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Turn this on to see every lesson as a simple checklist: what to get out, what to do and what to say, one line at a time.
Comstock starts bird study with the hen, then pigeons and the canary: feathers, flight, eyes, beaks, feet and bird talk, close up. Lessons 1–9.
Twenty-six common birds of yard, field, marsh and farm, from the robin to the turkey, ending with a winter hunt for empty nests. Lessons 10–35.
The goldfish and seven fish of brooks and ponds, watched from the bank or in a dishpan for a few minutes and let go. Lessons 36–43.
Raising a few tadpoles, the toad, the tree-frog, the frog and the red eft, which Comstock calls batrachians and we call amphibians. Lessons 44–48.
Three common snakes and the turtle, studied at a safe distance, with Comstock's corrections of old snake stories. Lessons 49–52.
The cottontail, muskrat, house mouse, woodchuck, red squirrel and chipmunk, through tracks, burrows and patient watching. Lessons 53–58.
Four night-time neighbors studied safely, through tracks, evening watching and Comstock's stories, never by handling. Lessons 59–62.
Dogs, cats, goats, sheep, horses, cattle and pigs, and what their wild ancestors' lives explain about them. Lessons 63–69.
Caterpillar, chrysalis or cocoon, and winged adult, from the swallowtail and monarch to the giant silk moths and the codling moth. Lessons 70–76.
Leaf-miners, leaf-rollers and gall-makers: tiny insects that make their homes inside or out of leaves and stems. Lessons 77–79.
Jumpers and singers of the fields, and their flat, quick cousin the cockroach. Lessons 80–83.
Set up a pond-water aquarium, then meet dragon-fly nymphs and caddis-worms that grow up underwater. Lessons 84–86.
Plant-lice and two hunters: the pit-digging ant-lion, and the aphis-lion, young of the golden-eyed lace-wing. Lessons 87–89.
Insects that matter to our health and gardens: mosquito, house-fly, potato-beetle, ladybird and firefly. Lessons 90–94.
A summer of watching ants outdoors, then an observation nest to see them care for their young. Lessons 95–97.
Mud-dauber, yellow-jacket, leaf-cutter, carpenter-bee and bumblebee, then the honey-bee, its comb and the work of the hive, all watched from a safe distance. Lessons 98–105.
The start of Comstock's "Other Invertebrate-Animal Study": three creatures of garden, soil and stream. Lessons 106–108.
Eight-legged builders: the harvestman, then cobwebs, funnel webs, orb-webs, domes, balloons, crab-spiders and egg-sacs. Lessons 109–116.
Hepatica to lady's slipper: the first flowers of the spring woods, studied where they grow and never picked or dug. Lessons 117–126.
Buttercups, evening primrose, a twining vine, a parasite, milkweed, and the plants of ponds and marshes. Lessons 127–134.
Comstock's outline for daisy-family flowers, then goldenrod, asters, the white daisy and the black-eyed Susan. Lessons 135–139.
Thistle, burdock, dandelion, mullein, wild carrot and other tough plants of fields and roadsides, ending with an outline for studying any weed. Lessons 140–149.
The start of Comstock's Cultivated-Plant Study: crocus, daffodils, tulips, pansies and the bleeding heart. Lessons 150–154.
Poppies, nasturtiums, larkspur, iris, sunflower and other garden flowers, each with its own trick for getting insects to carry pollen. Lessons 155–165.
Clovers, corn, cotton, strawberries and pumpkins: how crop plants grow, feed the soil and depend on insects and wind. Lessons 166–172.
How flowerless plants make spores: fern fruit dots, the two stalks of the horsetail, and the hair-cap moss. Lessons 173–178.
Mushrooms, puffballs, shelf fungi and other fungi studied by eye and spore print only, then sealed experiments with mold and germs. Lessons 179–187.
Adopt a tree for a year, make leaf prints, and meet the maple, elm, oaks, hickory, chestnut, horse-chestnut, willows, cottonwood and ash. Lessons 188–198.
The apple tree and grafting, the apple blossom becoming fruit, and the apple inside and out. Lessons 199–201.
Pine, Norway spruce and hemlock: needles, cones, seeds and how evergreens handle snow. Lessons 202–204.
Dogwood, staghorn sumac, witch-hazel and mountain laurel, each with a clever trick for flowers or seeds. Lessons 205–208.
Part IV, Earth and Sky, begins: how a brook carries soil, cuts its banks and drops its load. Lessons 209–210.
Growing crystals, salt, how to test a mineral, and quartz, feldspar, mica, granite, calcite, marble and limestone. Lessons 211–218.
What magnets attract, their poles, and a homemade floating compass. Lessons 219–219.
Soil as rock flour and humus, with experiments on how sand, loam and clay take in and hold water. Lessons 220–220.
Vapor, dew, frost and snow; air pressure and the barometer; reading weather maps and keeping a weather record. Lessons 221–224.
Evening lessons outdoors: the Dippers and Pole-star, the polar constellations, the winter stars around Orion, and the bright stars of summer. Lessons 225–231.
The Sun's changing path and the seasons, a homemade sundial, and a month of watching the Moon. Lessons 232–234.
Anna Botsford Comstock's handbook for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets, with short lessons on birds, animals, insects, plants and trees, rocks, the weather and the sky. Each lesson says what to look for and gives questions to answer by watching.
Scanned from a Cornell University copy.
Guide numbers match Comstock's own lesson numbers; she meant them to be taken in season, not in order, so pick what you can see this week. The guides are written for this site; the book is in the public domain.