148 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



longer be depended upon; and an ornithologist 

 would no more expect to find the sparrow of 

 Europe in the farmyards of the Cape Colony, or 

 even in North America, than he would to discover 

 a race of Indians in the mountains of Scotland. 

 Now, as there are few countries out of Europe, 

 where, if a traveller goes, he will not have to speak 

 of its natural productions, it follows that his quali- 

 fication for doing this will be measured by his pro- 

 ficiency in natural history. He may, indeed, omit 

 the subject altogether ; but it will be at the hazard 

 of his book holding a very inferior station in the 

 estimation of the public. We allude not, of course, 

 to those entertaining but ephemeral narratives of 

 travels, published under the appropriate titles of 

 Notes, Sketches, Short Reside?ices, &c. wherein amuse- 

 ment rather than instruction is aimed at. It is not 

 to such sources that we are to look for solid inform- 

 ation on the laws, the statistics, or the productions 

 of a country ; nor do we place them as standard 

 books of reference on the same shelf of our library as 

 Humboldt's New Spain, Burchell's Africa, or Ward's 

 Mexico. Our observations are addressed to tra- 

 vellers of a higher class : yet even the sketching 

 and noting tourists of the day, while they gallop over 

 a certain number of leagues against time, would do 

 well to know something of the animals which they 

 pass, or the productions which they cannot stop to 

 bring home as tests of their veracity. The world 

 of animals is as replete with anecdotes as that of 

 man ; and although they may not be so generally 

 amusing, they will often be found more instruc- 

 tive. 



