1899] THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY 443 



volved in the fact that our methods force us to abstract certain aspects 

 of the organism. There is an undoubted risk lest we forget the unity 

 of the organism -which we take so carefully to bits ; there is an un- 

 doubted risk lest we forget that what we measure and weigh and 

 analyse belonged to a creature which had something analogous to our 

 personality. We cannot dispense with our analysis, however, and the 

 corrective for its partiality which I am at present pleading for is 

 simply more study of the real life of the creature in its natural 

 environment, in other words, more " Natural History." It will then 

 be found that in proportion as our analysis has been thorough, our 

 realisation of the life around us will be vivid. To say that no one 

 really knows a bird who has not watched it build its nest may be 

 true ; but it may be justly retorted that no one really knows a bird 

 who does not know something about the physiology of its respiratory 

 system. 



The Third Question — Whence is This 1 



A third question is — " Whence is this ? " and though it is probably 

 as ancient as the others, the answering of it is distinctly modern. It 

 is really a double question, for we may inquire into the development 

 — the becoming — of the individual, and we may inquire into the 

 history of the race to which the individual belongs. We may study 

 the child-animal in its cradle — the bee-grub in the comb, the embryo 

 skate in its mermaid's purse, the chick within the shell — and the 

 answer to the question — Whence came this individual animal as a 

 whole and in each of its parts ? is embryology. On the other hand, 

 we may study the history of the race as it is hidden in the graveyards 

 of the past, the fossil-bearing rocks, and the answer to the question 

 — Whence came this race ? is palaeontology. 



To suggest how a minute embryological detail may become full of 

 interest to the field-naturalist, I may refer to the familiar jelly which 

 surrounds the eggs of the frog as these lie in the pond or ditch. The 

 jelly is an albuminoid secretion formed by the walls of the oviduct 

 round each ovum, and obviously comparable to the white in a bird's 

 egg, though it does not seem to have the nutritive importance of the 

 latter. So far a bald and not very interesting statement, but let us 

 leave the spawn in the pond and consider the uses of the jelly there. 

 It increases the buoyancy of the floating eggs ; it renders fertilisation 

 more secure by keeping the eggs together as they are laid ; each 

 sphere serves as an elastic cushion which lessens the risk of breakage 

 to egg and embryo ; the material is so slippery that few birds, except 

 those with broad bills, can manage to swallow it ; the stuff is un- 

 palatable, so that even the voracious Gammarids leave it alone ; and 

 it has also been suggested that each crystalline sphere may serve as 

 a sort of glass-house or incubator, enabling the developing egg to 

 make the best of the sun's rays. On count after count even a dead 



