THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 25 



geologist, incleed, especially in the remotest dis- 

 tricts, much remains to be done, but only at a 

 heavy outlay of time, labor, and study ; and the 

 dilettante (and it is for dilettanti, like myself, that 

 I principally write) must be content to tread in 

 the tracks of greater men who have preceded 

 him, and accept at second and third hand their 

 foregone conclusions. 



But this is most unsatisfactory ; for in giving 

 up discovery, one gives up one of the highest 

 enjoyments of natural history. There is a mys- 

 terious delight in the discovery of a new species, 

 akin (o that of seeing for the first time in their 

 native haunts, plants or animals of wliicli one 

 has till then only read. Some, surely, who read 

 these pages, have experienced that latter de- 

 light ; and, though they might find it hard to 

 define whence the pleasure arose, know well that 

 it was a solid plcjisure, the memory of which they 

 would not give up for hard cash. Some, surely, 

 can recollect at tlicir first sight of the Alpine 

 Soldanclla, the Khododendron, or the black 

 Orchis, growing upon the edge of tlie eternal 

 snow, a tlirill of emotion, not unmixed with 

 awe; u sense that they were, iis it were, bronglit 

 face to face with the creatures of another world ; 



