THE FOREST. 31 



Unfortunately for Charles Waterton he was not 

 a botanist, and therefore could appreciate only 

 one side of forest life, and that possibly the least 

 important. More and more every day it becomes 

 necessary for the naturalist to go beyond his own 

 special province. The entomologist must know 

 something of the plants on which insects feed, and 

 the botanist a great deal about the fertilising agents 

 continually at work among the flowers. He who 

 sees only one aspect of nature can never fully 

 appreciate the beautiful adaptations of one to 

 another and their perfect interdependence. 



Naturalists have been stigmatised as wanting in 

 that sense of beauty and harmony so common 

 everywhere among poets and dreamers. Far from 

 such being the case, however, none but a student 

 of nature can fully appreciate a landscape. The 

 painter sees patches of colour in sky, tree, or river, 

 but the naturalist recognises the objects which 

 make up the scene. On the sand-reef he dis- 

 tinguishes the footsteps of a jaguar and the 

 remains of his dinner, and can picture what has 

 taken place in the night. A peccary left her hole 

 in a hollow tree at nightfall to feed under the 

 saouari-nut trees. She is quietly cracking the 

 shells and munching the oily kernels, when the 

 great cat suddenly pounces upon her, and notwith- 



