2 BRITISH LIZARDS 



Most of us who study animals at all confine our 

 attention to one or two of those aspects to the neglect 

 of others. This is indeed a necessity in these days 

 of specialisation, when we have realised that it is 

 more than the work of a lifetime for any one man 

 to thoroughly work out the life-history of a single 

 species from every point of view. But it is im- 

 portant that the field naturalist should accurately 

 appreciate the particular aspects which are open to 

 his investigation, and it is no less important that he 

 should realise the existence of other points of view, 

 the investigation of which must fall to the lot of 

 others. That does not imply that his knoivledge of an 

 animal must be limited to those aspects which he 

 himself can inquire into, but it does imply the re- 

 cognition of the fact that there are other aspects of 

 animals than those which can be observed out of 

 doors. Therefore we say that the very first thing the 

 field naturalist should know about the animal kingdom 

 is what the description of an animal involves. That 

 is by no means such a simple matter as might appear. 

 It may be explained by an illustration. Suppose for 

 a moment that the observer discovers an animal 

 which, as far as he is able to ascertain, is something 

 which has not been described before, a new species. 

 He is anxious to draw up a description of it to 

 present to a meeting of some society, so that his 

 hearers may get a complete idea of his discovery. 

 He will probably find that the task of fully describing 



