Natural History. 25 



labourers, who have walked miles to bring some curious object, 

 or to tell of some strange beast or bird seen during their daily 

 toil. 



Unfortunately, in England the inculcation of scientific 

 knowledge is left almost entirely to private enterprise and in 

 the hands of such societies as ours. This is not the case in 

 foreign states, and notably so in America, where neither pains 

 nor expense are spared in instructing the people. I have now 

 before me a volume, most beautifully illustrated, recently 

 published and issued by the American Government Department 

 of Agriculture, on " The Hawks and Owls of the United 

 States." This book has been scattered wholesale, as a free 

 gift, over the land, and is intended to teach the American 

 farmer the great usefulness of birds of prey, and the good 

 which, as a rule, they confer upon him. Surely we have had 

 object lessons sufficient to bring this matter forcibly home to 

 us in that plague of field voles which has laid waste some of 

 the great sheep farms beyond the border, and the plague of 

 rats in Lincolnshire. 



It is hoped that in time we shall get a museum in Lincoln. 

 The want of this has been the cause of our losing many art 

 treasures, antiquities, and natural history specimens. We have 

 lost the inimitable pictures of De Wint, the Franklin relics, 

 and many other things which ought not to have left the 

 county. 



A word on our own individual and special duties as 

 naturalists ; and here I cannot do better than quote the words 

 of a late Bishop of Oxford the great Bishop Wilberforce. 

 He says : 



u A good practical naturalist must be a good observer ; and 

 how many qualities are required to make up a good observer ? 

 Attention, patience, quickness to seize separate fails, discrim- 

 ination to keep them unconfused, readiness to combine them, 

 and rapidity and yet slowness of induction ; above all, perfect 

 fidelity, which can be seduced neither by the enticements of a 

 favourite theory nor by the temptation to see a little more than 

 actually happens in some passing drama." 



In conclusion, it is gratifying to find that there is at least an 

 awakening and uprising on these matters in Lincolnshire, and 

 that the dry bones are moving. Let us trust that this Union 

 a real Union of hearts will inaugurate a new era. The most 

 wonderful fadfc in connection with the last half century has 

 been the progress of science. Everywhere amongst the 



