28 GLAUCUS ; OR, 
write) must be content to tread in the tracks of 
greater men who have preceded him, and accept 
at second or third hand their foregone conclusions. 
ee But this is most unsatisfactory ; for in giving up 
| discovery, one gives up one of the highest enjoy- 
ments of Natural History. There is a mysterious 
“delicht in the discovery of a new species, akin to 
that of seeing for the first time, in their native 
haunts, plants or animals of which one has till then 
conly read. Some, surely, who read these pages 
have experienced that latter delight; and, though 
they might find it hard to define whence the plea- 
sure arose, know well that it was a solid pleasure, 
the memory of which they would not give up for 
hard cash. Some, surely, can recollect, at their first 
sight of the Alpine Soldanella, the Rhododendron, 
or the black Orchis, growing upon the edge of the 
eternal snow, a thrill of emotion not unmixed with 
awe; a sense that they were, as it were, brought 
face to face with the creatures of another world; 
that Nature was independent of them, not merely 
they of her; that trees were not merely made to 
