402 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



curring pecuniary loss, the certain result of such an 

 undertaking. 



(274.) The importance of the class of publications 

 we are now speaking of, not only to the advance- 

 ment, but to the right understanding of science, 

 cannot be questioned. Words, however many, or 

 however well selected, cannot picture to the eye 

 the forms of things. And, next to the examin- 

 ation of the real object, an advantage seldom to 

 be obtained, its correct representation is the most 

 to be desired. Without the aid of accurate 

 figures, natural history, in all its branches, would 

 be involved in doubt and complexity, from the 

 poverty of language to express the innumerable 

 forms, and modifications of those forms, in the objects 

 upon which it treats. So much more easy is it to 

 impress a definite image upon the mind through the 

 medium of the eye, than the ear, that a rough out- 

 line, a small woodcut occupying but a square inch, 

 will accomplish this object better than a whole page 

 of the most elaborate description. In proportion to the 

 complication of the object we wish to make known, 

 so is the necessity increased for calling in the aid of 

 the graphic art. It is, therefore, absolutely essential 

 that such works should abound in every department 

 of zoology, because the objects to be made known by 

 such means pour in upon us from all parts of the 

 world, while the difficulty of discriminating them, 

 by mere words, is proportionably increased. But 

 by whom are such works (necessarily expensive 

 from the cost of the labour to which they owe their 

 excellence) to be encouraged or patronised ? The 

 natural supposition would be, by those institutions or 



