SKETCH OF LIFE AND WORK 31 



been prophetically looking. He would probably have 

 been able to see God's creative power in nature not less 

 clearly and reverently than before — creative by a never- 

 ceasing evolutionary process, a continual progressive 

 unfolding of the essential being of all existences — an 

 endless change and growth of organic form making 

 cleai'er to him the full significance of those very prin- 

 ciples of classification which he had already adopted, 

 with a deeper insight into the facts of nature on which 

 they rested, and Avhich, through the mind of Darwin, 

 had come to the scientific mind of the age as a new 

 and great revelation. 



But besides the scientific aspect of the Historij of 

 Uritish Birds, that " great work " has other features 

 which will always preserve its interest and attractive- 

 ness to many readers who may be unable to enter 

 intelligently into the author's scientific descriptions and 

 deductions. The narratives of his excursions — often 

 by night as well as by day ; the difficulties encountered 

 — at times with no little danger, especially while 

 scrambling among the rocks of the Outer Hebrides, 

 or climbing the cliffs of Ben Macdhui ; his descriptions 

 of scenery — now overpowering in its ruggedness and 

 grandeur, and again tenderly soothing in its soft and 

 varied beauty, amid which he wandered in the pursuit 

 of knowledge of the habits and modes of life of his 

 feathered friends, are often extremely fascinating, and 

 all the more so when such scenes are enlivened by a 

 solitary raven on its crag, or by a couple of sea eagles 

 wheeling about on wing high above his hiding-place, 



