"And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale."

"If happiness," he wrote in his twenty-second year, "consists in
the number of pleasing emotions that occupy our mind--how true is
it that the contemplation of nature, which always gives rise to
these emotions, is one of the great sources of happiness."

The earliest instance which has been remembered of his fondness for
animal life occurred when he was about three years old. He had been
in the garden and came running to show his mother what he had
found. Opening his carefully gathered up pinafore, out jumped two
frogs--to the great dismay of the good lady, for frogs are first
cousins to toads, the dire effects of whose glance and venom were
known to every one.

He received the best education the town could give, and was
fortunate in his schoolmasters--first Dr. J.C. Bruce of antiquarian
fame, and then Mr. John Storey, second to none in his day as a
north-country botanist.

Belt's father was much interested in horticulture; and, possessing
some meteorological instruments, entrusted him, when only twelve
years old, with the keeping of a set of observations which showed
not only the barometric and thermometric readings twice a day, and
the highest and lowest temperatures, but also the rainfall, the
state of the sky, the form of the clouds, and the force and