50 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



ings which would too probably have gradually 

 been wasted at the theatre. I have seen the 

 young London beauty, amid all the excitement 

 and temptation of luxury and flattery, with her 

 lieart pure and her mind occupied in a boudoir 

 full of shells and fossils, flowers and sea-weeds, 

 and keeping herself unspotted from the world, 

 by considering the lilies of the field, how they 

 grow. And therefore it is that I hail with thank- 

 fulness every fresh book of Natural History, as a 

 fresh boon to the young, a fresh help to those 

 who have to educate them. 



The gi'eatest difficulty in the way of beginners 

 is (as in most things) how to "learn the art of 

 learning." They go out, search, find less than 

 they expected, and give the subject up in dis- 

 appointment. It is good to begin, therefore, if 

 possible, by playing the part of "jackal" to some 

 practised naturalist, who will show the tyro where 

 to look, what to look for, and, moreover, what it 

 is that he has found ; often no easy matter to dis- 

 cover. Five-and-twenty years ago, during an 

 autumn's work of dead-leaf-searching in the Dev- 

 on woods for poor old Dr. Turton, while be was 

 writing his book on British land-shells, the pres- 

 ent writer learnt more of the art of observing 



