POPULARITY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 299 



hindrances in the way, such obstacles, and such uncertainties, who can wonder 

 that so few venture into the intricacies of Entomology, though more than ten 

 thousand British insects have been named ? Doubtless, were aids to study more 

 numerous and accessible, there would be a considerable increase of entomologists. 



Into every other department I need not enter, nor will space allow ; all have 

 not the same difficulties around them, and yet the zoologist may perceive, each in 

 his own province, some bar or obstacle obstructing progress, which it would be no 

 disadvantage to remove. The multiplication of new terms without explanation 

 is a perpetual source of annoyance and disquietude in scientific works, which 

 thus, instead of forwarding the student, keep him oscillating to and fro to no 

 useful purpose. As an instance I may take Mr. T. B. Hall's complaint in the 

 present volume of The Naturalist (p. 88), where he says he is "quite at a stand- 

 still," for want of a glossary to the terms employed in the two last volumes of 

 Hooker's British Flora. Mr. Lankester, at p. 1 77 of The Naturalist, in his paper 

 on the " Linnaean and Natural Arrangements of Plants," admits, I perceive, that 

 many of the books of Linnaean botanists " are written in a pleasing style, and 

 are calculated to allure to the study of Botany ;" — then why object to them with 

 this obvious utility about them, and the following ominous confession : — " If 

 there have been any deficiency of books on the natural system, it has been for 

 the want of demand." Just so. If works are written adapted only for the 

 studious few, however learned the author, the demand must be limited. If the 

 author, not satisfied with his own claims, captiously assails other systems that 

 have enjoyed a deserved popularity, he must expect opposition, for those who 

 have found the utility of their own course of study will hardly abandon it at a 

 first summons, at the ipse dixit of those who are interested in its suppression. 



There are two parties to be addressed by writers on Natural History ; the first 

 are professional students, or those whose leisure and resources enable them to 

 dedicate their chief time to their favourite subject ; and the second are those 

 whose pleasure is in the " poetry of Natural History," and whose intervals of 

 relaxation from commerce or professional duty enable them only to glance with 

 rapidity upon the condiments presented to their view. These are thus alluded 

 to by Professor Henslow : — " All who feel an unaccountable delight in contem- 

 plating the works of Nature, who admire the exquisite symmetry of crystals, 

 plants, and animals ; and who love to meditate upon the wonderful order and 

 regularity with which they are distributed ; Qhese] possess a source of continued 

 enjoyment within themselves, which is capable of producing a most beneficial 

 effect upon their temper and disposition, provided they do not abuse these 

 advantages by making such studies too exclusively the objects of their thoughts 

 and care."* In advocating the claims of this numerous class, I am only con- 



* Principles of Descriptive and Physiological Botany, 12mo., p. 4. 



