2 <I(4{MBLES OF A VOMINIS 



boy, the one who had loitered by the way, came back, 

 having gone over just the same ground, brimful of 

 enthusiasm over the birds, the flowers, the insects he 

 had met with in his ramble, and finally produced his 

 " handkerchief full of curiosities." The other admitted 

 that he too " saw some of these things, but did not take 

 particular notice of them." He "did not care about 

 them." 



It is a good story. But it is more than a story. And 

 it is as true to-day as when, a hundred years ago, it 

 was first given to the world. It is just what has been 

 happening since on every day in the year. It is precisely 

 what would happen now if a man town-born and bred 

 were to set out for a stroll in the country with a com- 

 panion whose eyes and ears had, by long and patient 

 study in the open air, grown not only familiar, but, as it 

 were, unconsciously conscious of every sight and sound 

 in all the landscape round him. 



But the naturalist, like the poet, is born, not made. 

 Much may undoubtedly be done by training, but the 

 keen observer is, first of all, a lover of Nature for her 

 own sake. He may not have any very deep acquaintance 

 with scientific text-books. He might betray, and very 

 likely would, an ignorance of geographical distribution, 

 of types, of scientific nomenclature in which a South 

 Kensington student could put him to the blush in five 

 minutes. But his mastery of woodcraft, his knowledge 

 of the haunts of nature, has been gained by days and 

 nights of waiting in the fields and lanes, by solitary vigil 

 in the twilight of the woods, by good-fellowship with all 



