292 POPULARITY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



weavers of Lancashire and Norfolk, the glovers of Worcester, and the mechanics 

 of Birmingham — not to mention numerous other localities — have been long noted 

 for cultivating these predilections, and Crabbe, in his well-known " Borough," 

 has made his " friend the Weaver," familiar to every body. This circumstance, 

 however, only entrenches me the firmer in my position that, while the objects 

 embraced by Natural History command almost universal attention, their detailed 

 anatomy, as materials for scientific study, is scarcely at all attended to, few out 

 of the thousands among artizans who have reared flowers for display, or collected 

 insects for amusement or sale, having really benefited science or the world by 

 any remarks upon the manners, habits, economy or arrangement of the tribes 

 whose beauty or diversities of structure have commanded their attention. No 

 doubt this arises on the one hand from the absence of competent guides, the 

 deficiency or expense of books to consult, and on the other from the pursuit being 

 taken up merely as the amusement of the hour, with the same zest that others 

 would seize upon the bowl or the quoit — 



"Whether the call-bird yield the hour's delight, 



Or, magnified in microscope, the mite; 



Or whether tumblers, croppers, carriers seize 



The gentle mind, they rule it and they please." Crabbe. 



But the disadvantage of engaging the acquaintance of Natural History on such a 

 principle as this is (however praiseworthy in itself) that as it acts unfettered by 

 the terms of science, so it is compelled to invent a vernacular dialect still more 

 barbarous and absurd than the pedantic names often foisted upon objects, appar- 

 ently with the charitable view of choaking the neophytes who may be compelled 

 to pronounce the cabalistic words. And independently of the absurdity of 

 imposing such names as " Grim the Collier," " Lancashire hero," &c, upon plants 

 or their products, and finding " Purple Emperors," " Queens of Spain," " Bed 

 Admirals," and Elephants, Tigers, Leopards, Magpies, &c, among insects, a 

 feeling of rivalry often amounting to malignity is engendered between exhibitors 

 and collectors, entirely marring all the delightful and amiable feelings one might 

 have expected to arise from the contemplation of some of Nature's fairest works, 

 and leading to bitter disputes, heart-burning detraction, and deception and nar- 

 row selfishness absolutely degrading. All this true science and correct feeling 

 disclaims, but it is fully demonstrable therefrom that it is a very different thing 

 to cultivate a few plants in pots, make an arrangement of pictured wings, or tap 

 a tame Squirrel on the head, and from actual knowledge and study be competent 

 to rank with the botanists, entomologists, and zoologists who have devoted their 

 lives to the pursuit. It follows that the objects comprised in any" study may 

 charm superficial notice without the study itself being generally attended to, 

 or at all philosophically considered — just as a set of clowns in an autumnal 



