"I have seen the cultivated man, craving for 

 travel and for success in life, pent up in the 

 drudgery of London work, and yet keeping his 

 spirit calm, and perhaps his morals all the more 

 righteous, by spending over his microscope even- 

 ings which would 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 heart 

 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 I hail with thankfulness every 

 fresh book on natural history as a fresh boon to 

 the young, afresh help to those who have to edu- 

 cate them Books of natural history are 



finding their way more and more into drawing- 

 rooms and school-rooms, and exciting greater 

 thirst for knowledge, which, even twenty years 

 ago, was considered superfluous for all but the 

 professional student." KEY. C. KINGSLEY. 



