ITS IMPORTANCE TO TRAVELLERS. 147 



(89.) We have now touched upon most of those 

 subjects in which the study of nature may be brought 

 to practical and beneficial purposes. Many of them 

 may be thought trivial, and some remote ; but 

 there are others which involve questions concerning 

 the prosperity of large communities, and the success 

 of great commercial undertakings. No science, 

 which can be applied to the solution of such ques- 

 tions, can be deemed inapplicable to the every-day 

 purposes of life; or unconnected with the wealth 

 of nations or of individuals. There is, in fact, 

 scarcely any branch of human knowledge but what 

 may be applied, immediately or remotely — in one 

 shape or another, — to the common benefit of man- 

 kind ; and among these, natural history, both in its 

 moral and practical application, must ever hold a 

 distinguished place. 



(90.) To travellers in foreign countries, natural 

 history is now become almost an essential qualifica- 

 tion. In the infancy of the natural sciences, the pro- 

 ductions of remote countries were either assimilated 

 to our own, or magnified and distorted into the most 

 marvellous wonders. The fabulous accounts of the 

 natives were faithfully collected by the credulous tra- 

 veller, and given to the world as facts attested by 

 his own observation. Hence arose the absurdities 

 recorded by Marco Polo, Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, 

 and many of the earlier travellers, no less than the 

 erroneous names assigned, in books of more modern 

 date, to animals whose species never existed where 

 they are asserted to live. But the advance of know- 

 ledge, and a more attentive consideration of animal 

 geography, has shown us that these accounts can no 



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