220 MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 



outside circumstances and living forces within ; slow, gradual 

 evolution from the nebula to the full-orbed star, and from the 

 chaotic star to the skilfully ordered and richly -furnished earth, 

 fit to be man's dwelling-place, and the scene of probation for 

 immortal souls." 



I turn, as often as I can, to the inspiriting pages of Coulson 

 Kernahan's " Dreams, Dead Earnest and Half Jest." Kernahan, 

 as a young man, was a friend of my family, and we used to welcome 

 him at the old home at St Albans many years ago. I have read 

 and re-read his " I Believe " in the " Wildflower and the Dawn," 

 and " A Dog in the Pulpit," and I am like a giant refreshed. 

 Light reading and deep thinking, such as Kernahan has given us, 

 are alike stimulating, but one quotation from " I Believe " must 

 suffice. Says Kernahan : 



" The Great Secret, the Secret of Life and Death, of Birth and 

 the Beyond, of Man's Destiny and God's Being, is still to seek 

 my boyish star-searching notwithstanding but now when I 

 am no longer a boy, I never seem so near the hiding place of the 

 secret as when I look into the heart of a flower." 



My old friend Aflalo's " Sketch of the Natural History (Verte- 

 brates) of the British Islands " has for several years been an 

 honoured and altogether useful volume on my shelves, and the 

 charming works of W. S. Furneaux, " The Outdoor World," 

 "Life in Ponds and Streams," "The Seashore," and "Field 

 and Woodland Plants " have all proved of inestimable service. 



W. H. Hudson's " British Birds," Gerald Leighton's " British 

 Serpents " and " British Lizards'" ; poor Edward Connold's 

 " British Vegetable Galls," and E. W. Swanton's " British Plant 

 Galls " and " Fungi " ; Ray Lankester's " Extinct Animals " 

 and " Science from an Easy Chair " ; Foster-Melliar's " Book 

 of "the Rose"; Lydekker's sumptuous tomes in " The Royal 

 Natural History " ; the Hertfordshire volumes in " The Victoria 

 History of the Counties of England " ; Daydon Jackson's " A 

 Glossary of Botanic Terms " ; Kirby's " Butterflies and Moths 

 of Europe " ; Avebury's " British Flowering Plants " (a treasured 

 presentation volume) ; Hseckel's " Evolution of Man " ; Darwin's 

 " Variation of Animals and Plants " ; Warde Fowler's " A Year 

 with the Birds " and " Summer Studies of Birds and Books " ; 

 Carpenter's " Insects, Their Structure and Life " ; Maunders's 

 " The Heavens and Their Story " ; Pemberton Lloyd's " The 

 Months of the Year " ; Thomson's " The Biology of the Seasons " 

 and " Introduction to Science " ; Emerson's Complete Works ; 



