be completely accomplished by observation in every land and 

 every sea, at every season, and during many years. 



The second method may be independent of the first, but 

 followers of the first are almost entirely dependent for their 

 very material on the contributions made by the followers of 

 the second, or by less intelligent providers of specimens. 

 Unquestionably every student should cultivate both methods 

 as far as circumstances permit, but in an inverse proportion 

 to his advantages for pursuing one, will generally be his facili- 

 ties for following the other. 



The closet student with his books and microscopes and 

 other advantages, can profit to the fullest extent by the labours 

 of his predecessors and contemporaries. He can carry on 

 investigations into new fields of discovery and bring to light 

 previously hidden laws of structure or even of development, 

 studies requiring long and close application and the examina- 

 tion and comparison of specimens from widely distant parts of 

 the world. As a rule he must limit his acquaintance with 

 living nature to the inhabitants of his native country, to 

 hurried observations of those met with in a brief summer 

 tour, or to the "cabined, cribbed, confined" specimens in a 

 menagerie or aquarium. 



The field or ocean naturalist on the other hand, if devoting 

 himself exclusively to his science, revels in the contemplation 

 of the habits, manners and instincts of created beings in any 

 and every part of the world ; yet if a collector, and an ardent 

 one, he cannot attain such a close acquaintance with the 

 internal structure, or even with the development, of anything 

 like the number of animals of widely different kinds and 

 widely distant countries as can his brother of the closet. How 

 much less can he do so if from professional or other duties he 

 is prevented from devoting more than a portion of his time to 

 the study of nature ! Yet though the closet and field 

 naturalists cannot be independent of each other, each class 



