216 Naturalist at Large 



paid more millions in dividends than one likes to think of 

 in these rather threadbare days. 



I have tried to set forth my opinion realistically and 

 fairly. As I have said, Mr. Lowell maintained that Louis 

 Agassiz was the greater figure of the two. He was un- 

 questionably correct in the final analysis, but both were 

 very great men, and their like I do not meet now. 



For years Uncle Bill Wheeler and I projected a book 

 on the contribution made to the study of natural history 

 by amateurs. Then came his untimely death, and I have 

 not thought again of the project until now. I received a few 

 days ago with the compliments of the Carnegie Foundation 

 a book entitled Th'e Amateur Scientist by W. Stephen 

 Thomas. This sets forth in brief but fascinating form the 

 contributions of the amateurs not only to biology but to 

 physics, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, and other 

 disciplines in their widest sense. In biology alone think of 

 the effect of the work of Darwin, in entomology of Sir 

 John Lubbock, Henri Fabre, or of Lord Rothschild, in 

 geology of Hugh Miller and Frank Buckland, in genetics 

 of the monk Gregor Mendel. 



In natural history no name stands forth more pre- 

 eminently than that of the Reverend J. G. Wood, whose 

 books have led children on to an interest in animal life for 

 well over half a century. I can bear witness that they 

 fascinated me as a youngster, and that I read and reread 

 many of them until they were completely worn-out. Take 

 the case of Gilbert W^hite, for instance, whose Natural 

 History of Selborne has been translated into many lan- 

 guages and appeared in numberless editions. Even herpetol- 



