INTRODUCTION xxv 



such qualifications combined with the qualifications 

 of a Darwin — with his love of natural history, his 

 power of close and accurate observation, his genius 

 for drawing right inferences from what he observed, 

 his wide knowledge of Nature in her many manifes- 

 tations, his sympathetic touch with every plant and 

 animal, and his warm, affectionate nature in all 

 human intercourse. 



We want, in fact, a Naturalist- Artist — a com- 

 bination of Julian Grenfell and Darwin. And this 

 is no outrageously impossible, but a very likely and 

 fitting combination. For Julian Grenfell wrote 

 great poetry even in the trenches in Flanders 

 between the two battles of Ypres. And with his 

 love of country life, shooting, fishing, and hunting, 

 his inclination might very easily have been directed 

 towards natural history. If it had been and the 

 opportunity had offered, we might have had the 

 very type of Naturalist- Artist we are now awaiting. 

 He would have had the physical fitness and capacity 

 to endure hardships which are required for travel in 

 parts of the Earth where the Natural Beauty is 

 finest, and he would have had, too, the sensitiveness 

 of soul to receive impressions and the power of 

 expressing himself so that others might share with 

 him the impressions he had felt. If after passing 

 through the earlier stages of shooting and hunting 

 birds and animals he had come to the more profitable 

 stage of observing them, and had devoted to the 

 observation of their habits and ways of life the same 

 skill and acumen which he had shown in hunting 

 them, he might, with his innate and genuine love of 

 animals, very well have become a great naturalist as 



