8 INTRODUCTION. 



his study, and pursue Nature into her own haunts, 

 amid fields, waters, woods and mountains, (to say 

 nothing of travelling to foreign climes,) or else he 

 must have a large proportion of such facts col- 

 lected to his hand by others, upon whose accuracy 

 he can depend. 



(6.) This circumstance has given rise to a dis- 

 tinction between (as they have been sometimes call- 

 ed) in-door and out-of-door naturalists. Every one 

 who has read White's Selborne, is aware how its 

 estimable author uses this latter term in speaking 

 of himself, not professing to be anything more than 

 a close observer of nature, and leaving to others to 

 compare and classify the facts so obtained, and to 

 build up systems in their own closets at home. 

 Neither is this distinction a bad one. There is 

 a great deal, as regards the real advancement of 

 the science of Natural History, which can be done 

 only at home, where there is quiet and leisure, to- 

 gether with ready access to a well-stored library; 

 and there is a great deal likewise, as we have just 

 seen, that can be done only abroad. And it is ab- 

 surd for either of these two classes of naturalists 

 to throw contempt and censure upon the other, as 

 sometimes has been the case ; seeing that they both 

 work together for the good of the science, and la- 

 bour in a common cause, although in different ways. 

 The in-door naturalist cannot do without the out- 

 of-door; and the latter, one might suppose, would 

 never undervalue the inquiries of the former, 

 which tend to increase the importance of his own 

 researches. 



