4.02 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
curring pecuniary loss, the certain result of such an 
undertaking. 
(274.) The importance of the class of publications 
we are now speaking of, not only to the advance- 
ment, but to the right understanding of science, 
cannot be questioned. Words, however many, or 
however well selected, cannot picture to the eye 
the forms of things. And, next to the examin- 
ation of the real object, an advantage seldom to 
be obtained, its correct representation is the most 
to be desired. Without the aid of accurate 
figures, natural history, in all its branches, would 
be involved in doubt and complexity, from the 
poverty of language to express the innumerable 
forms, and modifications of those forms, in the objects 
upon which it treats. So much more easy is it to 
impress a definite image upon the mind through the 
medium of the eye, than the ear, that a rough out- 
line, a small woodcut occupying but a square inch, 
will accomplish this object better than a whole page 
of the most elaborate description. In proportionto the 
complication of the object we wish to make known, 
so is the necessity increased for calling in the aid of 
the graphic art. It is, therefore, absolutely essential 
that such works should abound in every department 
of zoology, because the objects to be made known by 
such means pour in upon us from all parts of the 
world, while the difficulty of discriminating them, 
by mere words, is proportionably increased. But 
by whom are such works (necessarily expensive 
from the cost of the labour to which they owe their 
excellence) to be encouraged or patronised? The 
natural supposition would be, by those institutions or 
