17 



same with almost any other plant which happened to excite our 

 curiosity. Going to live at Ilkley, on the Yorkshire moors, it 

 immediately occurred to me that the moorland plants have been 

 only slightly considered with respect to their particular external 

 circumstances. Warming has made some good and suggestive 

 observations upon them, but there is plenty more to be done. 

 Leaf-buds again open out a wide field of almost untouched work. 

 Let any young naturalist resolve to study nature with his whole 

 mind, and to study only what interests him ; I will . venture to 

 assure him that he is entering upon a boundless enquiry, and 

 that he need never fear that the supply of good subjects will 

 dry up. 



It is a good rule to attend to the things that are close about 

 you. If you are making out a life-history for the first time, you 

 want an endless supply of specimens. Choose therefore some- 

 thing that is to be found in the next field, or in the pond at the 

 bottom of the garden. Rarity is, for this purpose, a serious 

 drawback. 



Don't be in a hurry to print what you think you have dis- 

 covered. The interpretation of natural contrivances, in par- 

 ticular, is always risky. Your first explanation is commonly 

 wrong. Your well-considered explanation, pondered over for 

 months, often turns out to be incomplete. 



Lincolnshire has special tracts of its own — fens, and salt- 

 marshes, and wide sands. Will not some one tell us all about 

 the inhabitants of these wildernesses? Take the species one by 

 one, and find out something like a full history of each. I should 

 thank anyone who would tell us all about the insects of the sea- 

 shore, of which I saw several during a short visit, but mere 

 notes of occurrence are useless. We want to know what these 

 insects feed upon, how they make their burrows, how they man- 

 age at high tides, what took them to the sea-shore, ;ind so on. 

 Stratiotes, which is commoner in Lincolnshire than in most 

 counties, harbours multitudes of animals, insects and others. 

 Why is it such a favourite ? Can anyone give us some new 

 observations upon the aquatic caterpillar which feeds upon 

 Stratiotes ? Of what use are the spines of Stratiotes ? 



There are many sides of nature, besides adaptation to environ- 

 ment, which are worth study. Human interest readily attaches 

 to things that have had a history, if that history admits of being 

 traced. The chalk hills, the raised beaches, the straths of sand 



