92 Transactions. 



oflf this mortal coil." And so we firttl that, after all, man is not 

 the only tormented animal, that even so low in the scale of life 

 as the soft-bodied invertebrates he has sympathies somewliat in 

 common — that the very crawling snail which he, in cruel thought- 

 lessness, crushes with his boot-heel, had its birth and upbringing, 

 its loves and quai-rels, its midnight revels among the gloomy 

 recesses of the hedge, its uses and functions as one link in the 

 never-ending chain that girdles this mystery of life. 



I have thus far tried to show what may be seen under almost 

 any common bit of hedgerow, and have purposely omitted much 

 that is often visible, but which I cannot describe, namely, the 

 numbers of small insects that vanish like specks of dust on the 

 upturning of a stone, and leave a sense of bewilderment at their 

 numbers, their variety, their rapidity of movement — their sudden 

 non-existence, so to speak. Many plants also within touch of 

 such a commonplace bit of ground would be observed, and long 

 time occupied in noting and describing their striking points and 

 peculiarities. No need to complain of want of material, at any 

 rate. What I want to impress on anyone here likely to need a 

 stimulus for his observation, is that the right seeing of any 

 natural fact is in itself a most valuable possession, while the 

 import of a rightly-recorded series of facts so grasped may — who 

 knows % — have definite influence upon general science in after 

 years. 



Begin courageously. The lirst step is the most diflicult every- 

 where ; and in the study of Nature, by hedgerow and hillock, 

 one of the most difficult first steps is to rid oneself of the fear of 

 the taunt conveyed in the words "peculiar," "eccentric," 

 "queer," and the like. You dread coming home, after a long- 

 healthy "holy-day" among the glens and woods, with bulging 

 out pockets, vasculum crammed to bursting, and a look that 

 means svpjjer, lest a laugh be raised at your appearance. Learn 

 to contemn such laughter. Common-place persons will have it 

 that So-and-so has a weakness, poor fellow, for beetles, or "oor 

 Tam 's just crazy ower thae mosses," and so on. Well, if you 

 feel any sympathetic power within you attracting towards 

 -Beetles or Mosses, roll the war back into the enemy's camp, and 

 tell tliem theirs is the weakness who follow every foolish fashion 

 with every changing moon, and theirs the craziness who prefer 

 the gorgeousness of a "Solomon in all his glory" to the apparel 

 in which the Creator clothes the grasses of the field. 



