CONDUCIVE TO HEALTH. 125 
will not even then be satisfied with mere common- 
place conversation. Home can only be truly enjoyed, 
where a taste for some one rational pursuit exists; 
and among these, there are few which promise more 
delight, than the love of natural history. 
(71.) Our science is no less conducive to health, 
than to rational pleasure. It requires to be prose- 
cuted by different means —all tending, indeed, to 
the same point, yet carried on by different indivi- 
duals, under different circumstances. The practical 
and the closet naturalist have each their respective 
departments, equally essential to the advancement 
of science, although very different in their duties. 
Facts regarding habits and instincts must be sought 
for in the fields and the woods; while their appli- 
cation and generalisation can best be meditated 
upon in the closet. Exercise is essential to health ; 
and a lover of nature wants no other inducement to 
secure such a blessing, than the active pursuit of her 
treasures. It is curious to remark the great age 
which naturalists generally attain. Whether this 
longevity is to be attributed to those quiet and tem- 
perate habits inseparable from their studies, or to 
that exercise necessary to active investigation, 
certain it is, that both must have considerable in- 
fluence on the prolongation of life. An entomologist, 
having no professional occupation, and ardently 
devoted to his study, may be said to live, during the 
greatest part of the year, in the open air. No soil 
or situation is unproductive of his game; he has 
not to wait until the First of September, for free 
licence and permission to capture. No sooner do 
the first mild beams of a spring sun awaken the 
