JUDGMENT IN COLLECTING MEMORY. 311 



productions found in his immediate neighbourhood, or in 

 his own parish , or peculiar to the county; but these, if he 

 wishes to understand them, will dissipate his mind over 

 every branch of zoology, and he will then find it expe- 

 dient still farther to restrict his acquisitions; and thus he 

 must ultimately be brought to that plan with which, as a 

 collector, he should have begun. He must confine himself 

 to one department of his favourite pursuit. It is better, 

 therefore, to do that first, which generally will be done 

 last ; supposing, of course, that his love for natural 

 history continues. Let the country naturalist, therefore, 

 make an early choice : the ornithology, the entomology, 

 or the conchology of his native country have each their 

 charms, and they lie before him. If he confines his 

 attention to any one of these branches, he will not only 

 feel more interest in its undivided pursuit, but he will 

 understand it better, and he may ultimately make useful, 

 and even important discoveries. But let him not aim 

 at more than one department. British entomology alone, 

 to be well understood, is the study of a life. Hence it 

 has become much more common, than formerly, among 

 our young naturalists, to confine the attention even to 

 one particular order of insects. The learned and vene- 

 rable father of entomology in this country, Mr. Kirby, 

 must have devoted several years to the study of the 

 Hymenoptera, before he could have written his valuable 

 descriptions of the British bees. If the student resolved 

 to restrict himself to either of the orders of Coleoptera 

 Lepidoptera or Diptera, he would find that any one 

 of these would give him full occupation for several years. 

 The more, in short, that our study of nature is con- 

 centrated upon a given object, the more are we likely 

 to make discoveries, and the more interested shall we 

 ourselves feel in the pursuit. The mere collector heaps 

 together materials which he neither understands nor 

 knows how to use : the very extent of his possessions, 

 unnamed and unarranged, ultimately engenders discon- 

 tent, and not unfrequently terminates in disgust. 



(377') A retentive memory is a desirable, although 

 x 4 



