104 EXVr,OK!.\(i XATUUAT.iSTS. 



the forest, however, woiihl think himself in very select and welcome 

 company, if other and inoie I'oreboding animals, besides those above na- 

 med, caine out to salute him, or even if, as Ben Johnson says : 



" The owl is abroad the bat and the toad, 



And so is the cat-a-monntain, 

 The ant and the mole sit both in a hole, 



And the froij peeps out of the fountain. " 



No Linna^an can contemplate tiiat scene, in the life of the ornithol- 

 ogist Wilson, when he steps alone into his little canoe, for a long voyage 

 down the ^'^ Belle Riviere^'''' without feeling the deep romance of his sit- 

 uation. This was an adventure beyond the daring of our cabinet natti- 

 ralists. It looked like making that, which most persons regard as the 

 fitting trifles of an hour's leisure, tiie serious business of his life. It was 

 attended witli an uncomfortable uncertainty of the shelter of home, of 

 the food and couch ready prepared at the going down of the sun. No 

 supper bell rang in his ears, and tlie ripple of the swelling flood rocked 

 him in slumber. But a great mind, full of other things, consents to 

 withstand these chances, always looking to the end. It despises these 

 longings for comfort, throws away the impertinent suggestions of ani- 

 mal ease with a "get thee behinil me Satan." The future filled up Wil- 

 son's store of hope ; and in his mind's picture of it, there stood forth a 

 row of Quarto Volumes of Letter press and colored plates of the brilliant 

 birds of America. Of such as these, often fatal Hgnes fatui^'''' are the 

 seductions, which drag the naturalist over bogs, across rivers, over the 

 mountain side, and eke the mountain billow. But Wilson survived his 

 adventures, and came to possess the land he had seen from 'Hhe top of 

 Pisgah." 



The spirit of exploring travel comes upon us early in life, wlien yet 

 we are wanting in the sober capability of judging the question of expe- 

 diency and profit. Tiie lust of the eye to behold strange places and 

 people is to be gratified, and the excitement from the perils of travel 

 are yearned after, taking many a foolish lad to sea to the annoyance and 

 distress of parents. What else urged Walter Scott, yet a youth, to per- 

 form his "raids" among the highlands. This too, prompted Linnaius, 

 Fallas, Ilumbolt, Le Vaillant, Waterton and scores of other men to search 

 other lauds, when wearied with conning over, so often, the surroundings 

 of their own. Their occupation, wlien en route, seems to have been an 

 after thought. 



With reference to natural history, this spirit of travel arranges those, 

 Avho pursue it fully, into two classes, the cabinet and the field natural- 

 ists. With the former this essay proposes to have but little to do ; and 



