402 Obstacles in the Acquisition of Specimens. 



abundant; it was brought cut up in pieces ready for pickling. 

 I hope and trust that this state of things is changing, and that 

 the present altered mode of education, as well as the multi- 

 plicity of cheap and useful books constantly issuing from the 

 press, will shortly diffuse a spirit of rational enquiry and of 

 desire for innocent amusement. — G. Francis. 55. Great 

 Prescott Street. 



A gentleman desirous to acquire some of the Bognor fossils, 

 had made a very urgent application to a highly respectable 

 tradesman in Bognor to employ some persons to collect speci- 

 mens : he received the following letter in reply : — " Dear 

 Sir, I have made every enquiry amongst the fishermen and 

 others that are well acquainted with this shore to collect me, 

 if possible, some specimens of shells or petrifactions, but they 

 cannot collect any thing worth sending. There are no shells 

 to be picked up on the coast, and as for the petrifactions, 

 they are nothing but a mass of coarse and common shells 

 mixed with sea sand, not worth carriage, possessing neither 

 novelty nor beauty. Could I have fulfilled your commission 

 to my satisfaction, I should have felt proud in being able to 

 have obliged. I am, dear Sir, your obedient servant." 



A second application had no better result. ( The possessor, 

 Nov. 1834, of the original copy of the letter). 



Do not we, the naturalists, ourselves cause, in our misap- 

 prehension, and by our pedantry, that abortion of useful ser- 

 vice which intention so kind as that which would prompt to 

 the bringing to us double paeonies or dahlias, Salicornia cut 

 ready for pickling, and shells and petrifactions, might ren- 

 der us ? 



" Suppose (when thought is warm, and fancy flows, 

 What will not argument sometimes suppose ?) 

 An isle possess'd by creatures of our kind, 

 Endued with reason, yet by nature blind. 

 Let Supposition lend her aid once more, 

 And land some grave optician on the shore : 

 He claps his lens, if haply they may see, 

 Close to the part where vision ought to be ; 

 But finds that though his tubes assist the sight, 

 They cannot give it, or make darkness light. 

 He reads wise lectures, and describes aloud 

 A sense they know not to the wondering crowd ; 

 He talks of light, and the prismatic hues, 

 As men of depth in erudition use ; 

 But all he gains for his harangue is — Well ! 

 What monstrous lies some travellers will tell !" 



This is an allegory of Cowper's, applied by him to a sub- 

 ject distinct from technical natural history : see his poem on 

 « Charity." 



