SPARROW-PUDDING NATURALISTS. 213 



exists in this world, the power of States and companies is limited ; 

 they diminish in ratio to the area of their circumference. 



The future doctrines of the limited States of America afford room 

 for various speculations; the rapid development of her maritime 

 power has been watched with an eye of jealous uneasiness in this 

 country ; and the preservation of our maritime supremacy in the 

 course of another half century, has been asserted to be at best pro- 

 blematical. This is an opinion to which we should be willing to 

 allow due weight, could it be shown that the integrity of this mighty 

 republic will be preserved through that period of time. But passing 

 events rather point to a contrary conclusion, and, once dissolved, Eng- 

 land will have nothing more to fear from her maritime greatness ; for 

 the different sections, into which she will split, will be too much oc- 

 cupied with their own internal jealousies and dissensions leaving 

 out of the question the wide field they will present to our diplo- 

 macy, which will render them any thing but formidable to the 

 nations of the old world. ^fy 



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SPARROW-PUDDING NATURALISTS. 



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ONE of the most extraordinary signs of the times, is the great and 

 still increasing popularity of almost every branch of Natural History. 

 A few years ago, Zoology was a word almost unknown to " ears 

 polite ;" very few works on the subject were published, and those 

 only found purchasers among the scientific. Most people had read 

 Buffon ' ' in their younger days," and deemed it pure waste of time 

 to pore over any other book about " birds and beasts ;" Buffon being 

 deemed all wise and infallible. It was supposed that he had " gar- 

 nered, yea, even unto the gleaning," every fact worth knowing as to 

 Natural History ; that he had taken a true and philosophical view of 

 the creation, which appearing, according to his accounts and argu- 

 ments, although exquisite in parts, a sad, disjointed, bungling affair 

 on the whole, the subject was voted a dead bore by the thoughtless, 

 and proved a stumbling-block to the thinking, who were amazed 

 staggered, to find that numerous living things were apparently cre- 

 ated for no other purpose than to endure a life of physical misery. 

 The study of Natural History was even condemned by some as tend- 

 ing to bring about infidelity ; and the science slumbered in odium, so 

 far as regarded the public, for a number of years. Meantime the 

 most ludicrous errors were accepted as standard truths in short, 

 every body believed in Buffon. 



Lately, however, a new spirit hath sprung up. Natural History 

 has ceased to be the study of a few, and has become the enthusiastic 

 pursuit of many. Thousands and tens of thousands of men, women, 

 and children, of all nations, and all grades in society, and in all parts 

 of the globe, are daily labouring with delight, to increase our stock 

 of knowlege on this important subject ; so that with a rapidity that 

 is truly astonishing, the distorted phantasmagoria of ignorance and 

 presumption are being rapidly dispelled, and man begins to see " in 



