458 Study of Natural History, 



intellect and fortune in introducing into our tropic settlements the 

 bread-fruit, the mangosteen, and every plant and seed which he 

 hoped might be useful for medicine, agriculture, and commerce, 

 could yet feel himself justified in devoting large portions of his 

 ever well-spent time to the fighting the battle of the corallines 

 against Parsons and the rest, and even in measuring pens with 

 Linne, the prince of naturalists. There are those who can sympa- 

 thize with the gallant old Scotch officer mentioned by some writer 

 on sea-weeds, who, desperately wounded in the breach atBadajos, 

 and a sharer in all the toils and triumphs of the Peninsular war, 

 could in his old age show a rare sea-weed with as much triumph 

 as his well-earned medals, and talk over a tiny spore-capsule with 

 as much zest as the records of sieges and battles. Why not ? 

 That temper which made him a good soldier may very well have 

 made him a good naturalist also. And certainly, the best natu- 

 ralist, as far as logical acumen, as well as earnest research, is con- 

 cerned, whom England has ever seen, was the Devonshire squire, 

 Colonel George Montagu, of whom Mr. E. Forbes * well says, that 

 *'had he been educated a physiologist," (and not, as he was, a sol- 

 dier and a sportsman,) " and made the study of nature his aim 

 and not his amusement, his would have been one of the greatest 

 names in the whole range of British science." I question, never- 

 theless, whether he would not have lost more than he would have 

 gained by a different training. It might have made him a more 

 learned systematizer ; but would it have quickened in him that 

 " seeing eye" of the true soldier and sportsman, which makes Mon- 

 tagu's descriptions indelible word-pictures, instinct with life and 

 truth ? " There is no question," says Mr. E. Forbes, after bewail- 

 ing the vagueness of most naturalists, " about the identity of any 

 animal Montagu described He was a forward-looking phi- 

 losopher ; he spoke of every creature as if one exceeding like it ; 

 yet different from it, would be washed up by the waves next tide. 

 Consequently his descriptions are permanent." Scientific men 

 will recognize in this the highest praise which can be bestowed, 

 because it attributes to him that highest faculty, — The Art of See- 

 ing : but the study and the book would not have given that. It 

 is God's gift, wheresoever educated ; but its true school-room is 



* " British Star-fishes." This dehgbtful writer, and eager investigator, 

 has just died, in the prime of life, from disease contracted (it is said) during 

 a scientific journey in Asia Minor : one more martyr to the knight-errantry 

 of science. 



