304 PRACTICAL AND SCIENTIFIC ZOOLOGY. 



ceases. If he is not a mere catalogue-maker, or a de- 

 votee to systematic names a race of worthies which in 

 these days is almost extinct,, he treasures all the 

 facts communicated by his brethren of the field, and 

 applies them, as occasion serves, to their ultimate use. 

 While the one collects, the other combines. By means 

 of his library, he ascertains which of the facts are really 

 new, and which have been previously observed and re- 

 corded : he combines the scientific with the natural his- 

 tory of an animal. He examines its structure in every 

 minute particular, and is thus enabled to trace the par- 

 ticular adaptation of this structure for performing all 

 those functions which the field naturalist has witnessed 

 during its life ; an intellectual gratification, by the way, 

 which the latter, if he disregards such minutiae, cannot en- 

 joy. He observes all those external peculiarities of shape, 

 of colour, or of markings, which distinguish the object 

 before him as a species; he refers to his collections, 

 compares it with others, and thus ascertains its true 

 characters. But all this is but preliminary to other in- 

 vestigations ; his business is not only with species, but 

 with groups, which are congregations of species ; he has 

 to condense particulars into generals ; in other words, to 

 search after and obtain general results from a multipli- 

 city of isolated facts. He detects natural groups, and 

 distinguishes them by characters applicable to the indi- 

 viduals which respectively compose them ; he next com- 

 pares these assemblages with others, and studies their 

 several degrees of relationship. Proceeding in this 

 manner, and ascending higher and higher in his ge- 

 neralisations, he concentrates the facts, spread into an 

 octavo volume of zoological anecdotes and " field" re- 

 marks, within the compass of a few pages. And while 

 he thus makes use of the diffuse and disconnected ob- 

 servations of the field naturalist, he gives to them a 

 stamp of importance which even their authors never 

 imagined they possessed. Conversant with the different 

 relations which one group of beings bears to another, he 

 is enabled to trace the most beautiful and unexpected 



