6 



recruiting, but it will be at the same time the best introduction 

 to the study of Natural History. The beginner is at once brought 

 into contact with facts and not with mere brain-cobwebs of 

 theory. He deprecated that collecting, which sometimes results 

 in the pride of possessing some rare birds' eggs, rare plants or rare 

 minerals — a taste which too often tends to the extermination of 

 beautiful species among our flora and fauna. At the same time 

 it must be said that every great naturalist, from Aristotle to 

 Darwin, had been a collector, and if the young collector can be 

 taught by the older members of a Field Club to observe 

 scientifically and accurately, so as to learn how to identify species 

 and the methods by which they are differentiated, instead of 

 merely affixing a label to certain objects with the name inscribed 

 on it, then collecting will become a scientific education. 



2nd. — As to field work as a means of providing material for 

 study, there was not much to be said. The Professor, however, 

 emphasized the need of noting the manner in which the object 

 collected is associated with others. A fragment of rock, for 

 instance, may be analysed by the petrologist, but the knowledge 

 of the mass of rock with which it is associated, or if an igneous 

 one, with those with which it is brought into contact, will often 

 be of service in determining the method of its genesis. Was it 

 taken from the surface, from the sides where it was in contact 

 with other rocks, or from the interior of the mass ? If a fossil, 

 there are many seemingly trivial details as to how and where it 

 was obtained, which may be of the utmost value in determining 

 its history. 



3rd. — The study of structural detail. The chief feature 

 which renders the late Professor Babington's Manual one of the 

 most educational books to put into the hands of a student of 

 Botany is, that so many little points of structural discrimination 

 are brought out which are not recognisable in mere dried 

 specimens. In the study of these difficult but interesting series 

 of forms, for instance, the aquatic or ' Batrachian Ranunculi/ 

 it is of great importance to note whether the segments of 

 the submerged leaves when withdrawn from the water collapse 

 or spread out, and the most recent German authorities on 

 flowering plants insist strongly, in several parts of their system, 

 on the hairs on the plant and the direction in which they grow, 

 as a character of value. 



4th. — The study of the life of the individual. Using the 

 terms life and development in a wide sense, we may say that 

 field work is of the very highest importance as a means of 

 studying the life history of individuals in all their phases of 



