EXPENSE OF NATURALISTS' MATERIALS. 359 



short, who have no occasion to look around, and see 

 in what manner science will enable them to live. 



(247.) While the possession of great zoological 

 attainments leads neither to honorary nor pecuniary 

 advantages, their acquirement is attended with an 

 enormous expense. Books and specimens are the 

 indispensable materials for study. And a large 

 collection of both becomes absolutely essential to 

 every one who aspires to something beyond the 

 minutiae of his science, the details of names, or the 

 characterising species. Those who are within a 

 convenient distance of the National Museum, are, in 

 a great measure, exempted from such expensive 

 purchases. Yet, when it is remembered that there 

 are no public means of instruction attached either 

 to that establishment, nor to the two leading uni- 

 versities, and that critical examinations, in most in- 

 stances, can only be made and followed up in the 

 quietude of the study or the library, few will venture 

 to risk their fame on the strength of hasty and par- 

 tial examinations snatched at a public museum. 

 Natural objects, to be well understood, must be 

 examined and re-examined when the mind is at 

 leisure ; when it can discard one conjecture, and, 

 by a fresh inspection, seek to form another : and, if 

 the matter in question has reference to any general 

 law, every animal whose conformation may be 

 thought to bear upon that law, either by affinity or 

 analogy, must, as far as possible, undergo a repeated 

 inspection. The same critical accuracy is necessary 

 in the use of books ; wherein a single word will 

 not unfrequently decide a contested point : nor are 

 those works illustrated by figures, — and which, 

 a a 4 



