vi DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



conferred on man — mechanical and electrical devices, 

 explosives, life-saving control over disease. They would 

 say of Science, as the ignoble proverb tells us of Honesty, 

 that it is " the best policy." But Honesty is far more 

 than that, and so is Science. Science has revealed to 

 man his own origin and history, and his place in this 

 world of un-ending marvels and beauty. It has given 

 him a new and unassailable outlook on all things both 

 great and small. Science commends itself to us as does 

 Honesty and as does great Art and all fine thought and 

 deed — not as a policy yielding material profits, but 

 because it satisfies man's soul. 



I offer these chapters to the reader as possibly afford- 

 ing to him, as their revision has to me, a welcome 

 escape, when health demands it, from the immense and 

 inexorable obsession of warfare. The several chapters 

 have been selected from articles entitled " Science from 

 an Easy Chair" written in recent years by me for the 

 " Daily Telegraph." Under that title I have already pub- 

 lished two volumes of similar selections. I have chosen 

 a new title, " Diversions of a Naturalist," for this third 

 volume in order to avoid confusion with the earlier ones. 

 Illustrative drawings have been introduced into several 

 of the articles and a few alterations made in the text. 

 But they remain essentially what their origin implies — 

 namely, detached essays addressed to a wide public. 



I wish to thank my friend Dr. Smith Woodward of 

 the Natural History Museum for the figures 23, 25, 26, 



