CHAP. I The Wealth of Life 3 



But the student must also attempt more careful studies 

 of living animals, for it is easy to remain satisfied with 

 vague "general impressions." He should make for himself 

 — to be corrected afterwards by the labours of others — a 

 " Fauna " and " Flora " of the district, or a " Naturalist's 

 Year Book " of the flow and ebb of the living tide. He 

 should select some nook or pool for special study, seeking 

 a more and more intimate acquaintance with its tenants, 

 watching them first and using the eyes of other students 

 afterwards. Nor is there any difficulty in keeping at least 

 freshwater aquaria — simply glass globes with pond water 

 and weeds — in which, within small compass, much wealth 

 of life may be observed. Those students are specially 

 fortunate who have within reach such collections as the 

 Zoological Gardens and the British Museum in London ; 

 but this is no reason for failing to appreciate the life of the 

 sea-shore, the moor-pond, and the woods, or for neglecting 

 to gain the confidence of fishermen and gamekeepers, or 

 of any whose knowledge of natural history has been gathered 

 from the experience of their daily life. 



1. Variety of Life. — Between one form of life and another 

 there often seems nothing in common save that both are 

 ahve. Thus life is characteristically asleep in plants, it is 

 generally more or less awake in animals. Yet among the 

 latter, does it not doze in the tortoise, does it not fever in 

 the hot-blooded bird ? Or contrast the phlegmatic am- 

 phibian and the lithe fish, the limpet on the rock and the 

 energetic squid, the barnacle passively pendent on the float- 

 ing log and the frolicsome shrimp, the cochineal insect like 

 a gall upon the leaf and the busy bee, the sedentary corals 

 and the free-swimming jellyfish, the sponge on the rock 

 and the minute Night-Light Infusorians which make the 

 waves sparkle in the summer darkness. No genie of Oriental 

 fancy was more protean than the reality behind the myth 

 — the activity of life. 



2. Haunts of Life. — The variety of haunt and home 

 is not less striking. There is the great and wide sea with 

 swimming things innumerable, our modern giants the whales, 

 the seals and walruses and the sluggish sea-cows, the flip- 



