HOW A NATURALIST IS TRAINED. 631 



HOW A NATURALIST IS TRAINED. 



By J. S. KINGSLET, Sc. D. 



EVERY trade, every profession, lias its own peculiar methods of 

 procedure, which, while not kept secret, are still unknown to the 

 general public. This ignorance is due to several causes, among which 

 may be mentioned a lack of interest and a lack of any simple account 

 of the processes involved. If one not educated to the legal profession 

 be told the facts in a certain case, and then be turned loose in a large 

 law library, how long would it take him to work up a brief ? How 

 would he know what books to consult, where to find decisions bearing 

 on the cases in question, or, when found, how to interpret them, and 

 ascertain their exact relations to the subject in dispute ? 



There is probably just as much mystery surrounding the way in 

 which the naturalist investigates the secrets of Nature, yet the true stu- 

 dent has not the slightest desire to conceal his methods ; but, on the 

 other hand, is perfectly willing, even glad, to tell bow he arrived at his 

 results to any one who wishes to hear. The student, on first entering a 

 biological laboratory, thinks he has an easy task before him. All that 

 he has to do in order to become a naturalist is to see and to remember 

 what he sees. In a few days this confidence gives way to a spirit of 

 despair. He begins to realize that observation is not so easy as he 

 thought, and that the structures so distinctly shown in anatomical plates 

 are not so readily discovered in the object before him. He becomes 

 satisfied that in science, as in the other departments of knowledge, 

 there is no royal road to learning. Gradually he acquires the methods, 

 and knowing them his knowledge increases. What at first seemed an 

 impossible task is seen to be really easy, and things at first invisible 

 are soon as plain as day. At first sight it would seem difficult to take 

 an egg, only ^ of an inch in diameter, and cut it into slices in any 

 desired manner, and yet it is an every-day operation to section such 

 an egg and convert it into fifty slices. 



It is the purpose of this article to tell in general terms the way in 

 which a naturalist, and especially a zoologist, arrives at his results. 

 To give exact details would expand this article to a large volume and 

 render it extremely abstruse and technical, while a mere outline will 

 be much shorter and (the writer hopes) more interesting. Within 

 the past few years the methods of study and tendencies of biological 

 thought have undergone an immense development ; and although each 

 of the nearly four hundred colleges and universities in the United 

 States pretend to give instruction in botany and zoology, there are 

 really less than a dozen where the student can obtain a good and solid 

 foundation in the biological sciences as they exist to-day. 



Until school-life begins, a child is a good observer, but the whole 



