36 The Field Naturalist's Quarterly Feb. 



Scientist versus Collector. 



By Claude Morley, F.E.S., &c. 



There are many extremely philosophical men who hold 

 that the mere compilation of a collection of any branch of 

 Natural History is so much waste of time and animal life ; 

 and there are yet more square -figured persons, of the un- 

 creative turn of mind known as practical, who will believe 

 only what they see in Nature, and not that which has given 

 gradual birth through the centuries of geological time to the 

 present state of Nature. 



The question has often been heatedly discussed, Which is 

 the more useful of these two classes : that which amasses 

 material, or that which evolves theories therefrom ? And, 

 indeed, there is no answer, for both are equally beneficial in 

 different directions : to roam the country, enjoy its beauties, 

 and carry home relics which rise in the form of a monument 

 to happy hours, always reminding one of sunshine, cloud, 

 and field, will be a thing of beauty and a joy for ever to the 

 individual ; but to trace the stages of growth of the oak 

 from Silurian Algae, of Man from Cambrian Protozoa, is to 

 open the eyes of the world to the things an average mind 

 wots not of. Without that unmitigated happiness, an innate 

 love of Nature, there is no collector : and without collectors 

 there could have been no Darwin. Thus we may safely say 

 that the compiler of objects must come first, the deducer of 

 lessons therefrom afterwards; for theories must be founded 

 on facts, and those facts must in the first instance be 

 compiled. 



It is a striking feature of Naturalists as a group that so 

 very few are both scientists to startle the world with broad 

 and far-reaching theories — so new as to be at first unbe- 

 lievable (like the alternating generations of the Gall-flies) — 

 and collectors to actually mingle with the objects in situ 

 nature? and laboriously build up the truths of their economy 

 through long years of patient observation. 



There is what one may, I think, call an intermediate 



