This first book in the series of elementary science readers deals with plants, insects, birds, and higher animals. It is intended both to give the essential facts of science that children of the third and fourth grades should know and to serve as a school reader. It is then a content reader, furnishing additional reading material for increasing skill in reading and giving information that will be useful in the lives of the children not only now, but in later years. Since one of the most important aims of silent reading is the mastery of subject matter, there has been added to each chapter a list of suggested questions to aid the teacher in the effective use of the texts.