Preface. 



4 'Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignif- 

 icant; all objects are as windows, through which 

 the philosophic eye looks into Infinitude itself." 

 So wrote Carlyle, in speaking of the rag from 

 which man makes paper, or the litter from 

 which the earth makes corn. So thinks the 

 naturalist as he wanders on and on through 

 field and forest, his eye and ear ever on the 

 alert for some object, however lowly, through 

 whose veins the blood or sap runs freely in the 

 race of life. The midge, the shrew; the pro- 

 tococcus and the lichen, each has a void to fill, 

 a lesson to teach in the great book of nature. 



IXor are living things the only objects which 

 should attract the attention of the naturalist. 

 Each pebble has a past ; each tiny grain of clay 

 or soil a future. The boulder on the hillside, 

 how came it there and when ? 'Tis but an atom 

 as compared with the bulk of the great round 

 earth beneath, yet 'tis as worthy as a theme of 

 thought. The shadows, as they come and go, 



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