92 Transactions. 
off this mortal coil.” And so we find 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 somewhat 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 quarrels, 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 first step is the most difficult 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 supper, 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 them 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. 
