INTRODUCTION. / 



supplying the materials with which the skilful builder may erect 

 his edifice. There cannot be a more beautiful example of that 

 adaptation which exists between the faculties of the human mind 

 and the objects of human knowledge, than the variety of modes in 

 which the study of Natural History may be pursued, and the cor- 

 responding variety of tastes which we meet with in those who devote 

 themselves to it. For whilst some busy themselves in simply 

 collecting the birds, the insects, the zoophytes, or the plants 

 which they meet with in their neighbourhood, and delight in 

 ascertaining those characters bv which their place in a classifi- 



O " * 



cation may be determined ; others avail themselves of the mate- 

 rials thus brought together, and (perhaps without ever themselves 

 going abroad into the fields, or even confined, it may be, to a 

 narrow apartment in the middle of a crowded city), delight in 

 examining their internal structure, toilsomely unravelling the 

 details of their organisation, and scrutinising, with the aid of the 

 Microscope, their minutest parts ; others, again, prefer to leave 

 the birds, the insects, the zoophytes, or the plants, unmolested 

 in their native haunts, but devote themselves to the observation 

 of their habits, the examination of their economy, the recording 

 of their actions ; whilst the scientific Naturalist, whose talent 

 lies rather in generalising than in observing, and who is versed in 

 the principles which have been already ascertained in regard to 

 the structure, physiology, habits, and classification of the objects 

 of his study, seeks to combine the observations of others, in such 

 a manner as to correct what has been erroneous in his previous 

 system, to extend it to new and previously unknown forms of 

 animated being, and to develope those beautiful analogies and 

 connections, which show the whole to be parts of one vast plan, 

 the work of one Almighty and Omniscient Creator. 



As the labours of all these are necessary to the building-up of 

 the Science of Natural History, it is well that such diversity ot 

 tastes and of mental faculties should exist ; since all the subjects 

 receive their due share of attention, which could not be if there 



