Notwithstanding the prevailing general indifference 

 to the subject of natural history in country places, this 

 indifference is by no means universal. Many there are, 

 in various parts of the country, who, in spite of educa- 

 tion, (or the want of it,) delight in watching and tracing 

 the various operations of nature, and who have acquired 

 by their own individual observations, a large amount of 

 knowledge of the productions and objects around 

 them ; but who for the want of instruction, and books, 

 and specimens, are, for the most part, unable, success- 

 fully, to push forward their labors, or so to arrange 

 their results, as to make them serviceable to others. 

 And yet I have known persons in the backwoods of 

 Vermont, while wholly unacquainted with natural his- 

 tory as a science, acquire by their personal attention 

 and observation, so much knowledge of the habits of 

 insects, and birds, and other animals of their neighbor- 

 hood, as to be able to furnish to the naturalist positive 

 and valuable additions to science. And even some of 

 our uninstructed housewives, by their habits of careful 

 discrimination in the process of cooking, obtain so 

 accurate a knowledge of various animals used for food, 

 as might sometimes enable them to put the professed 

 comparative anatomist to the blush for his ignorance. 



I have spoken of the exclusion of natural history 

 from our schools as the great cause of the general 

 apathy and indifference to that subject in country places. 

 The same cause is, perhaps, equally operative in towns 

 and cities ; but these latter possess, in their easy access 

 to large libraries and cabinets, and in their wider range 

 and greater facilities for the collection of specimens 

 through the avenues of commerce, advantages of which 

 they, who may desire to cultivate natural history in the 

 country, are entirely deprived. 



