1 70 Country Rambles. 



homes, prepared for long beforehand, and looked back 

 upon as isles of light and verdure in his wake. His love 

 of social gatherings, his skill as a practical naturalist, 

 were equalled by his sagacity and shrewdness. "There," 

 said he once, on the conclusion of the reading of a 

 paper, " that is what we want ; that wasn't learnt out of 

 a book." His courtesy and generosity rose to the same 

 level. Every Tuesday evening, when the members of the 

 class assembled to compare their notes and discoveries 

 of the past week, there was old Crozier, busy as usual 

 with his birds, and only too glad to chat with his young 

 disciples, withholding nothing he could tell that would 

 interest and amuse, and, what was far more valuable, 

 inspiring them with his own enthusiasm. This kind, 

 warm-hearted, cheerful old man it was who, taking the 

 young naturalists by the hand, first showed many of them 

 the way to Baguley and to Carrington, to Greenfield and 

 to Rostherne, pointing out the rarities which his large 

 experience knew so cleverly how to find, and communi- 

 cating his various knowledge with the unselfishness of 

 one in a thousand. Nothing seemed to come strange to 

 him. Great as was his botanical information, he excelled 

 in a still higher degree as an entomologist and orni- 

 thologist; he was acquainted with the shape and habits 

 of every bird and every butterfly, every branch of his 

 knowledge helping him to enlarged success in the prose- 

 cution of the others, botany aiding entomology, and 

 entomology facilitating botany. It was his extensive 

 and accurate knowledge of plants that rendered him so 



