POPULARITY OP NATURAL HISTORY. 291 



three miles from St. Andrews^ These magnificent birds have occasionally been 

 shot on the Eden, but are, comparatively speaking, unless in cases of severe and 

 long-continued storms, strangers to our shores. 



Common Teal, Anas crecca. — A great many specimens of this beautiful bird 

 have been shot during the past winter. 



Northern Diver, Colymbus glacialis. — A beautiful specimen of this large bird 

 was caught alive a few years ago at the mouth of the river Eden. The specimen 

 was preserved by, and is now in possession of, a gentleman residing in St. Andrews. 



Law Park Cottage, near St. Andrews, 

 March 12, 1838. 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE POPULARITY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



No. II. With Illustrations and Suggestions. 



By Edwin Lees, F.L.S. 



(Continued from page 123.) 



I wish to be distinctly understood as not taking up a position inimical to 

 the scientific naturalist — whose interests I shall be enabled to touch upon here- 

 after — but as inquiring into plain matters of facts. If any assertions I make are 

 incorrect they can be easily disproved, and my inferences and conclusions are of 

 course thrown down in the open arena of opinion. I desire, therefore, to bring 

 the subject to the test of reflection, as some suggestions may possibly arise in the 

 course of the inquiry, productive of service to the extension of the study of 

 Natural History, which I confess I ardently desire, rather than to blockade its 

 avenues of approach with a still more dense array of terminological boulders than 

 already barricade its confines. 



I have already shown the confusion of ideas generally entertained with regard 

 to the alleged " popularity of Natural History," while the fact really is, that 

 though the objects embraced by the pursuit are in themselves of general interest, 

 and, when described or alluded to in non-technical language, " popular" in the 

 common acceptation of the term, yet their scientific study is by no means so 

 general as to warrant the application of the term in question to it. The idea 

 seems to have arisen from the fact, which has often excited attention, that per- 

 sons in the very lowest grades of society and in the most dependent situations 

 have been found employing the little leisure the laborious avocations assigned 

 them by poverty allowed, in making collections of insects, or from some half 

 dozen broken pots or smoke-environed narrow strip of ground raising for the 

 horticultural exhibition " the glorious flower which bore the palm away." The 



