ON HABITS OF OBSERVING. 13 



in the dark, as if they had been only just brought 

 to our museums from a remote quarter of the 

 globe. 



(10.) Neither let us disdain to notice the most 

 trivial facts that may be brought under our eye, 

 from a feeling that they can be of no use. When 

 White made the remark (at which some might 

 smile) that the field-cricket " drops its dung on a 

 little platform at the mouth of its hole," he proba- 

 bly did not stop to consider whether the fact were 

 worth recording, but was actuated only by a desire 

 to give the whole history of the little insect before 

 him, so far as he could learn it. And it is impossi- 

 ble to say at the moment of what use the most 

 trifling fact may be. It is impossible to determine 

 the exact importance of any circumstance in the 

 history of an animal until we know its whole history ; 

 and not only this, but the whole history of other 

 allied species, so as to ascertain what is peculiar to 

 the one in question, and what is common to all the 

 species of the group to which it belongs, Many 

 facts, which seem in themselves trifling, may be 

 found hereafter of the greatest importance to science. 

 They may lead to the unravelling of some knot, 

 or the solving of some difficulty, that would long 

 have remained a mystery without them. And one 

 simple observation, thought nothing of at the time 

 by the observer himself, may avail to the overthrow 

 of an entire system, the fruit perhaps of years of 

 labour and close meditation.* 



* See Cuvier, Hist, des Prog, des Sci. Nat. torn. i. p. 5. 



