EXPECTATIONS. 279 



be wanting ; yet I think I may expect some approach to 

 the strange and beautiful natural productions of that 

 unexplored country. Very few naturalists have visited 

 Arru. One or two of the French discovery ships have 

 touched it. M. Payen, of Brussels, was there, but stayed 

 probably only a few days ; and I suppose not twenty 

 specimens of its birds and insects are positively known. 

 Here, then, I shall have tolerably new ground, and if I 

 have health I shall work it well. I take three lads with 

 me, two of whom can shoot and skin birds." * 



Such men as these are fast beating up the untrodden 

 ground, and gathering into our museums and cabinets 

 the natural history harvest of every land. Already we 

 know the characteristic forms of almost all the regions of 

 the earth ; and, though there yet remain great tracts un- 

 explored, and these in the most teeming climes, yet from 

 the productions of surrounding or contiguous districts we 

 can pretty surely conjecture what forms they will yield, — 

 what sorts of forms, at least, though there may remain 

 much of novelty in detail. When we consider that an 

 ardent and most indefatigable entomologist, after spending 

 eleven years in one region — the Valley of the Amazon, — 

 devoting his whole time and energy to searching after 

 butterflies, yet finds new species turning up, in almost 

 unabated profusion, and that every little district visited, 

 though but a few miles distant from the last, has its own 

 peculiar, though allied kinds, we may form some idea of 

 the vast variety and abundance of unknown insects which 



* Zoologist, pp. 5117, 5656. 



