122 "VYOODVILLE : ITS PETS AND ITS PUKSTJITS. 



The graver pursuits of Wooclville were different branches 

 of natural history. To his entomological cabinet he con- 

 tinued to add till it became one of the largest private 

 collections in Scotland ; and in the cognate departments, 

 his attainments were such as to leave him few equals in 

 general zoological knowledge. For such employments 

 the time was propitious. In popular taste there is a 

 rotation of the sciences ; and just as the century closed 

 with Herschel and astronomy, and as the discoveries of 

 Davy next gave eclat to chemistry, so, thirty years ago, 

 and most likely as a consequence of the beautiful general- 

 isations of Cuvier, animated nature began to attract the 

 attention which had hitherto oscillated betwixt suns on 

 the one side and atoms on the other. Splendid folios 

 introduced to the drawing-rooms of peers and princes the 

 creatures of other lands, in all their forms of beauty, 

 grotesqueness, or magnificence ; and whilst the pages of 

 Jesse, Waterton, and Kirby amused the general reader, 

 the "Library of Entertaining Knowledge/' and other 

 clever compilations, brought the subject within the reach 

 of the humblest resources ; to which we must not forget 

 to add the new spirit which began to pervade collections 

 like the National Museum, and the gathering together of 

 great animal assemblages in beautiful parks and gardens, 

 of which the crowning specimen is now exhibited by the 

 Zoological Society, in its magnificent menagerie. 



