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When fishes cannot be identified in the field, the larger ones may be sketched and notes taken on their color, while the smaller ones may be preserved with salt, formalin, or any kind of spirits.Specimens and drawings may be forwarded for identification to the zoological department of the local state university, to the state fish commission, to the Bureau of Fisheries, Washington, D.C., or to the United States National Museum in the same city.This most delightful of outdoor pastimes requires for its enjoyment no elaborate or expensive paraphernalia: a rod cut on the spot, a cork float, an ordinary hook baited with angleworm, grasshopper, grub, may-fly, or any of a dozen other handy lures, will answer for most occasions.At the same time, the joys of fishing will often be increased if one possesses and learns how to use a light, jointed rod, with reel, fine line, and artificial baits.The necessary equipment for scientific angling is so light and compact that it should form a part of the outfit of every one who spends much time in the open air.

A blind made of green cloth and set up near the nest like a little tent will often give opportunity for very close observation.It is surprising how near many birds will allow one to come in this way.Even though the blind looks very strange and out of place, the birds soon seem to get used to it, so long as it is motionless and the inmate cannot be seen.

From such a hiding place, photographs can often be secured of timid birds at their nests.In attempting to take photographs it must be remembered that cameras of the pocket variety or fixed box type are almost useless.Most of them cannot be worked without special attachments at closer range than six feet, and, even if the focus is correctly guessed, the image is apt to be very small.In this work it is far better to invest in a cheap camera (second-hand if need be) with which one can obtain a definite image on the ground glass where the plate or film is to be.Focus the camera on some spot where it is expected the bird will come; usually this is on the nest or young, sometimes it is the food, a favorite perch, or some form of decoy.The next requisite is patience.If the coveted opportunity arrives, set off the shutter by hand in the blind, or, where this is not possible, by means of a long thread, after carefully hiding the camera with boughs, leaves, sods, etc.By reptiles we understand properly a certain class of vertebrate or backboned animals, which, on the whole, may be described as possessing scales or horny shields since most of them may be distinguished by this outer covering, as the mammals by their hair and the birds by their feathers.

Such animals as thousand-legs, scorpions, tarantulas, etc.

The lizards are four-legged reptiles, usually of small size, living on the ground or in the trees, out very rarely voluntarily entering water.The so-called water lizards are not lizards at all, but belong to the salamanders and are distinguished by having a naked body not covered with scales.Most of the true lizards are of very graceful form, exceedingly quick at running; others display the most gorgeous coloration which, in many of them, such as the chameleons, changes according to the light, or the temperature, or the mood of the animal.Not all of them have four legs, however, there being a strong tendency to develop legless species which then externally become so much like snakes that they are told apart with some difficulty.

Thus our so-called glass-snake, common in the Southern states, is not a snake at all, but a lizard, as we may easily see by observing the ear openings on each side of the head, as no snake has ears.This beautiful animal is also known as the joint-snake, and both names have reference to the exceeding brittleness of its long tail, which often breaks in many pieces in the hands of the enemy trying to capture the lizard.That these pieces ever join and heal together is of course a silly fable.As a matter of fact, the body in a comparatively short time grows a new tail, which, however, is much shorter and stumpier than the old one.

The new piece is often of a different color from the rest of the body and greatly resembles a "horn," being conical and pointed, and has thus given rise to another equally silly fable, that of the horn snake, or hoop snake, which is said to have a sting in its tail and to be deadly poisonous.The lizards are all perfectly harmless, except the sluggish Gila monster (pronounced Heela, named from the Gila River in Arizona) which lives in the deserts of Arizona and Mexico, and whose bite may be fatal to man.The poison glands are situated at the point of the lower jaw, and the venom is taken up by the wound while the animal hangs on to its victim with the tenacity of a bulldog.

All the other lizards are harmless in spite of the dreadful stories told about the deadly quality of some of the species in various parts of the country.Nearly all insects go through several different stages.The young bird is very much like its parent, so is the young squirrel or a young snake or a young fish or a young snail; but with most of the insects the young is very different from its parents.

The box tortoise of our woods, the musk turtles, the snapping turtles are familiar examples of this order, while the terrapin, which lives in brackish ponds and swamps along our sea-coasts, is famous as a table delicacy.The lizards are four-legged reptiles, usually of small size, living on the ground or in the trees, out very rarely voluntarily entering water.The so-called water lizards are not lizards at all, but belong to the salamanders and are distinguished by having a naked body not covered with scales.Most of the true lizards are of very graceful form, exceedingly quick at running; others display the most gorgeous coloration which, in many of them, such as the chameleons, changes according to the light, or the temperature, or the mood of the animal.Not all of them have four legs, however, there being a strong tendency to develop legless species which then externally become so much like snakes that they are told apart with some difficulty.Thus our so-called glass-snake, common in the Southern states, is not a snake at all, but a lizard, as we may easily see by observing the ear openings on each side of the head, as no snake has ears.This beautiful animal is also known as the joint-snake, and both names have reference to the exceeding brittleness of its long tail, which often breaks in many pieces in the hands of the enemy trying to capture the lizard.That these pieces ever join and heal together is of course a silly fable.