STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 47 



the scarcity of common fuel. The droppings of 

 the cows were collected in heaps, and beaten into 

 a mass with water ; then pressed by the feet into 

 moulds like bricks, by regular professional persons, 

 called clatters (dodders) ; then dried in the sun, 

 and stacked like peat, and a dry March for the 

 clat harvest was considered as very desirable. These 

 answered very well for 'heating water for the dairy 

 and uses of the farm back-kitchen, giving a steady, 

 dull heat, without flame ; but navigable canals, and 

 other conveniences of a similar nature, have ren- 

 dered the practice now unnecessary. With us this 

 bad custom is declining, and probably in time will 

 cease altogether. 



IT is rather a subject of surprise, that in our gene- 

 ral associations and commixtures in life, in times 

 so highly enlightened as the present, when many 

 ancient prejudices are gradually flitting away, as 

 reason and science dawn on mankind, we should 

 meet with so few, comparatively speaking, who have 

 any knowledge of, or take the least interest in 

 natural history ; or if the subject obtain a moment's 

 consideration, it has no abiding place in the mind, 

 being dismissed as the fitting employ of children 

 and inferior capacities. But the natural historian 

 is required to attend to something more than the 

 vagaries of butterflies, and the spinnings of cater- 



