n6 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



fly — a story which only the modern nature- writ- 

 ing specialist would be capable of handling. Na- 

 ture-writing and the automobile business have 

 developed vastly during the last few years. 



It is Charles Kingsley, I think, who defines "a 

 thoroughly good naturalist" as one "who knows 

 his own parish thoroughly," a definition, all ques- 

 tions of style aside, that accurately describes the 

 nature-writer. He has field enough for his pen in 

 a parish; he can hardly know more and know 

 it intimately enough to write about it. For the 

 nature-writer, while he may be more or less of a 

 scientist, is never mere scientist — zoologist or 

 botanist. Animals are not his theme ; flowers are 

 not his theme. Nothing less than the universe is 

 his theme, as it pivots on him, around the distant 

 boundaries of his immediate neighborhood. 



His is an emotional, not an intellectual, point 

 of view; a literary, not a scientific, approach; 

 which means that he is the axis of his world, 

 its great circumference, rather than any fact — 

 any flower, or star, or tortoise. Now to the 

 scientist the tortoise is the thing: the particu- 

 lar species Thalassochelys kempi ; of the family 

 Testudinidse ; of the order Chelonia ; of the class 



