92 OBSERVATIONS ON THE BRITISH 



focus, would constitute a truly valuable library of reference. The 

 student in Natural History is too often deterred, by the dry details 

 of science, from persevering in his favourite pursuit, from the want 

 of access to a museum and well-selected library — a reference to 

 which would speedily remove the obstacles from his path, and incite 

 him to further exertion. 



The formation of museums in every county would, likewise, be 

 attended with important advantages, not only to the cause of sci- 

 ence, but in a national point of view. Deep as the investigation 

 has gone into the natural productions of this country, its recesses 

 would be more diligently and successfully explored if museums were 

 formed, as on the continent, for the reception of the geological, 

 botanical, ornithological, and other treasures, with which every 

 county more or less abounds. Were this plan adopted throughout 

 the kingdom, and the museums opened, under certain restrictions, 

 to all classes, they would be not only interesting to the scientific 

 stranger, but prove a source of instruction, and open a wide field 

 for inquiry, to those resident in the county, who would be enabled 

 to form some idea of its resources, if they could contemplate, in a 

 well-arranged museum, the various natural productions to be found 

 within its limits. 



When we consider that this country contains more than ten 

 thousand insects already named and catalogued; between fifteen 

 and sixteen hundred indigenous plants, independent of those more 

 minute, though not less beautiful, forms of vegetation, the mosses, 

 which amount to three hundred; that there are four hundred and 

 twenty lichens enumerated in the second volume of Hooker's Bri- 

 tish Flora ; that the Hepaticae, Algae, and Fungi, form an immense 

 tribe for students to investigate, independent of the numerous spe- 

 cies of birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, fishes, and molluscous animals, 

 whose natures, instincts, and habits, form a fertile ground for re- 

 search — when we consider that minerals, or fossils, and geological 

 specimens are to be met with, more or less, in every county, we 

 never need be at a loss for amusement and instruction, if we would 

 observe, and take some little trouble to surmount the difficulties of 

 the first introduction to science. 



There is, indeed, ample food in every county for an inquiring 

 mind, whether we turn to its natural productions, or to its antiqui- 

 ties — the former comprising its botanical, ornithological, and other 

 kindred subjects ; the latter, its architectural and monumental re- 

 mains, its ancient tumuli, barrows, and camps, — its monastic and 

 castellated edifices — ^its churches, and their sculptured tombs, and 



