14 PREFATORY NOTICE. 



but little. But a guide to " Observation," taken 

 unexplained, is even worse ; for unless it be in the 

 use of instruments and apparatus, I know not how 

 one man can guide another to observe. Means 

 may certainly be taken to tempt a person into the 

 fields : but if he will not use his own senses when 

 he is once there, his case is hopeless. " Hints of 

 Inducement to the Observation of Nature," is, there- 

 fore, what I have been reduced to in the execution 

 of the volume, and, consequently, that should be 

 taken as the fair interpretation of the title. 



Even that is no easy task. Anybody could 

 write a panegyric on nature ; and so could any one 

 who had access to the printed books, and a talent 

 or turn that way, compile a manual of the outlines 

 of Natural History, or of the details of any, or all, 

 of the departments of it. But the first of these 

 would not have accomplished the object which I had 

 in view ; and the second would have defeated that 

 object. Mere panegyric does not put anybody in 

 the way of knowing what it lauds ; and as for writ- 

 ing on Natural History, the quantity of that is 

 already out of all measure compared with the ob- 

 servation. There is not an apartment in the densest 

 part of the British metropolis in which it would not 

 be possible to "grow" a naturalist, who should 

 utterly confound the sharpest eyed and clearest 

 headed man who ever looked at real nature, and 

 reflected on what he saw. That is merely a fash- 

 ion, however ; and, like all fashions, it affords no 

 pleasure, except when it is so worn as to attract 

 public notice. Now, I have no wish to set up 



