as a Study for young People* ' ISfr 



he content to exchange his liberty for the pleasure of being' 

 gazed upon, when he cracks the nuts we may occasionally 

 choose to bestow upon him? Is the lark that soars higher' 

 than the clouds, as he welcomes the morning with his 

 sprightly song, well pleased to be imprisoned in that gloomy 

 cage, with just space enough allowed him to hop off and on 

 that handful of turf? Is the nightingale, who derives his 

 birth from a land of roses, happy in being shut up in a 

 wooden box, one half of which admits no light, during our 

 cold and foggy winter; happy in being debarred from that 

 annual flight to which nature urges him, in being doomed to 

 solitary imprisonment, at a time when he should be cheering 

 his patient mate with his song ? No, no, ■ — let us not blind 

 our minds to the evident truth, that whatever pleasure we 

 may derive from these little victims, is obtained at their cost; 

 such pleasure is not innocent. 



Botany has this advantage over some other branches of 

 natural history, that it offers no temptation to cruelty. I 

 cannot but believe that the many cruel experiments which 

 divers naturalists have made upon various living creatures, 

 have had a good end in view ; and that those who have made 

 them, have thought themselves authorised so to do, and 

 believed that the end sanctioned the means. This is a great 

 question, and one I will not attempt to discuss ; I leave it 

 to those whom it most concerns, to settle as they best can : it 

 does not concern the general student. But there are lesser 

 sins to which the inconsiderate might be tempted, in the zeal 

 of enquiry ; and we fear that the study of birds, insects, &c., 

 are not a little likely to offer such temptations. In the vege- 

 table world we have all the interest of continual change, pro- 

 gress, reproduction, life, and death, without the fear of in- 

 flicting pain; we may ourselves cause the existence of the 

 most beautiful plants ; we put a seed into the earth, and when 

 we see the young leaves shoot forth, they seem almost as of 

 our own creation ; we rear them, observe their progress, and 

 watch over their health with an interest and pleasure unem- 

 bittered by such thoughts, as, to a thinking mind, take all 

 sweetness from the melody of the captive bird. As mere 

 amusement, the study of flowers is a perfectly innocent one : 

 we may be satisfied with it as such ; or we may derive from it 

 a more intellectual enjoyment, by turning our attention to 

 that higher branch of the science, which treats of the interior 

 organisation of plants ; the functions of their various parts ; 

 how axjting and how acted upon; their produce and their 

 properties, from the little chafi^weed (Centunculus minimus) 



K 2 



