62 NATURAL HISTORY 



tory. The stars glitter in literature almost as they 

 do in the heavens. The bands of Orion and the 

 sweet influence of the Pleiades, and all the famous 

 constellations, have beautified almost every lan- 

 guage. To these the Naturalist can lay no claim. 

 And it may be said that the writers who borrow 

 their illustrations most largely and successfully 

 from the objects of Nature, are not Natural Histo- 

 rians. They may not study books to learn those 

 natural objects they have never seen they may be 

 ignorant of the terms of Linnaeus, and the divisions 

 of Jussieu. They may not be able to give a single 

 scientific name, and yet every writer that pleases us 

 most, looks with the eye of science, and describes 

 with the accuracy of a Naturalist. Their vivid and 

 minute descriptions show the skill and strength of 

 the observing power. The effect of this is seen 

 even in the savage, before brutalized by the white 

 man's vices. He puts to blush the best-trained ob- 

 server of the schools, and marks with the naked eye 

 nice distinctions, which even the microscope can 

 hardly reveal to some of us. These forms of Nature 

 give him not only the graceful model of his canoe, 



