EXPENSE OF NATURALISTS’ MATERIALS. 359 
short, who have no occasion to look around, and see 
in what manner science will enable them to live. 
(247.) While the possession of great zoological 
attainments leads neither to honorary nor pecuniary 
advantages, their acquirement is attended with an 
enormous expense. Books and specimens are the 
indispensable materials for study. And a large 
collection of both becomes absolutely essential to 
every one who aspires to something beyond the 
minutize of his science, the details of names, or the 
characterising species. Those who are within a 
convenient distance of the National Museum, are, in 
a great measure, exempted from such expensive 
purchases. Yet, when it is remembered that there 
are no public means of instruction attached either 
to that establishment, nor to the two leading uni- 
versities, and that critical examinations, in most in- 
stances, can only be made and followed up in the 
quietude of the study or the library, few will venture 
to risk their fame on the strength of hasty and par- 
tial examinations snatched at a public museum. 
Natural objects, to be well understood, must be 
examined and re-examined when the mind is at 
leisure; when it can discard one conjecture, and, 
by a fresh inspection, seek to form another: and, if 
the matter in question has reference to any general 
law, every animal whose conformation may be 
thought to bear upon that law, either by affinity or 
analogy, must, as far as possible, undergo a repeated 
inspection. The same critical accuracy is necessary 
in the use of books; wherein a single word will 
not unfrequently decide a contested point: nor are 
those works illustrated by figures,—and which, 
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