ON THE POPULARITY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 121 



greatest mistakes are therefore often made by these vehicles ; they give publicity 

 to mysterious accounts and seeming wonders that are of no authority, and do not 

 occupy, as they might do, that position between the scientific publication and the 

 unlearned observer which would be of the utmost importance to the spread of a 

 correct taste for Natural History. They may indeed admit a statement as 

 curious, but, being unable to give the explanation, they resemble an author I 

 have met with, who, in his catalogue of birds found in a certain spot, mentions 

 some Gulls seen flying occasionally about a pool, but remarks, to what tribe of 

 that numerous family they belonged, he " was not prepared to say" ! Till this 

 be remedied, if the field of Natural History is to be enlarged, and its students 

 increased, the writers on this subject who address the public through the press, 

 especially in periodicals, are not to suppose their readers in general to be profi- 

 cients, but learners. The question then will be, is it expedient to address learn- 

 ers ? and I repeat it is so if we wish the boundaries of our favourite pursuit to 

 be extended ; and it follows that the language and allusions we make use of 

 should be such as even learners may comprehend and take an interest in. 



I have felt it necessary to enter largely upon this topic, because nothing runs 

 more glibly over the tongue than the " popidarity " of Natural History — nobody 

 disputes it — nobody analyzes the materials of which this cobweb " popularity " is 

 made, and then when we find ourselves laughed at for devotion to the study, and per- 

 haps the lucubrations of ourselves or some of our friends not honoured with quite 

 such a premium as falls to the lot of the successful novelist, it does seem a little 

 queer to hear the eternal chorus of the popularity of Natural History, from indi- 

 viduals who perhaps scarcely ever open a scientific work on the subject, and 

 whom no inducement could persuade to walk half a dozen miles for any other 

 purpose than to sit down and carouse for the rest of the day ! But how can 

 Natural History be popidar as a study yet? It must be imbibed young, if much 

 progress is to be made, and ought to have competent teachers, like any other 

 branch of education. But there is still a prejudice against this in some quarters 

 as unnecessary, and in most instances (the medical profession perhaps excepted), 

 if the men of the present generation know anything about it they have taught 

 themselves. When I went to school I recollect the only class-book from which 

 there was the slightest chance of obtaining the rudest rudiments of Natural His- 

 tory, was Turner's Arts and Sciences, probably obsolete now, in which the 

 whole tribe of heathen gods and goddesses were stowed like goods in a crowded 

 vessel, in company with metals, mermaids, falling stars, thunder and lightning, 

 Lions, and spouting Whales, and cuts of Nightingales and Cuckoos as like the 

 birds they represented as some I have seen on old glazed tiles and painted win- 

 dows, which might pass for any thing. No doubt things are improved now : at 

 any rate books are not deficient, but multitudes still exist who have been 



