CHARLES WATERTON AS A NATURALIST. 



swallow their prey, while in captiv- 

 ity, however they might do these 

 while in a state of nature. 



Waterton says : " I have been in 

 the midst of snakes for many years ; 

 I have observed them on the ground, 

 on trees, in bushes, on bedsteads, 

 and upon old mouldering walls " (p. 

 440) ; and adds very strongly : 

 " I have seen numberless snakes re- 

 tire at my sudden approach, and [in 

 addition to that] I have seen many 

 remain quite still until I got up 

 quite close to them " (p. 446), after 

 having, in almost the previous 

 breath, said, " As for snakes, I sel- 

 dom saw them " (p. 436). And, 

 " when we consider the immense 

 extent of tropical America, and 

 view its endless woods, we are 

 forced to admit that snakes are 

 comparatively few. I have seen 

 more monkeys in one day than I 

 have found snakes during my entire 

 sojourn in the forests. When I did 

 fall in with them (and they were not 

 wanted for dissection), whether they 

 were poisonous or harmless, I 

 would contemplate them for a few 

 minutes ere I proceeded" (p. 432), 

 offering them no molestation. Such 

 evidence as Waterton's on the ques- 

 tion before us would not be re- 

 ceived in any court of justice, be- 

 cause he contradicts himself as 

 regards the numbers of his snakes, 

 and gives no information in regard 

 to his authorities in support of his 

 assertions. A very safe conclusion 

 to draw would be, that Waterton's 

 pursuit of snakes was to procure 

 specimens to set up, leading to some 

 incidental information about them, 

 which certainly would not justify 

 him in attempting, Pope-like, to 

 speak ex cathedra on the subject. 

 On his third journey he told us that 

 he collected 230 birds and 2 large 

 .serpents, besides a few other ani- 

 mals. His editor says : " For 

 every observation which Waterton 

 had printed he had made at least a 

 hundred" (p. 134). If this was 

 Intended to apply to snakes, it would 



have been interesting to have seen 

 the ninety-and-nine " observations " 

 which he left in the wilderness of 

 his memory. His information re- 

 garding snakes resembled an old 

 Indian's medicine-bag a collection 

 of odds and ends of no intrinsic 

 value, but of the first importance to 

 him, to give him confidence in his 

 movements and to conjure by, and 

 which it would be sacrilege for any 

 one to touch but himself. And woe 

 would have been to that " closet 

 naturalist " who would have dared 

 to touch his medicine-bag in his life- 

 time. He would have been scalped 

 at once, and skinned at leisure for 

 his temerity. 



II. 



Charles Waterton died in 1865, 

 aged 83 years. He spent his life 

 in the study of natural history, 

 principally if not almost entirely in 

 ornithology, and the setting up of 

 animals, and particularly birds, 

 which seem to have been the end 

 of his existence, and the breath of 

 his nostrils. He entered upon the 

 family estate of Walton Hall, York- 

 shire, when he was 24 years of 

 age, and surrounded part of it with 

 a wall ten feet high, and did every- 

 thing to carry out his favourite pur- 

 suit, giving absolute protection to 

 every kind of animal, foxes and rab- 

 bits, I believe, only excepted. It 

 would have argued poorly for him 

 if he had not become an adept in 

 his special studies, even if his 

 genius for them had been of a 

 common order; but he proved an 

 unreliable authority outside of his 

 sphere, and illustrated the truth that 

 if the mind is allowed to run ex- 

 clusively and for long on one sub- 

 ject, it becomes incapacitated for 

 any other, even if it bears a cog- 

 nate relation to it. My trouble in 

 proving this as regards Waterton, in 

 addition to what has been consider- 

 ed on the subject of snakes, will be 

 to select material from his Essays, 

 where it lies in profusion. Since I 



