THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



THE FOUR SEASONS. 





INTRODUCTION. 



ONE of the principal charms of the study of nature 

 consists in the fact of its extending over time as well 

 as over space, imparting wisdom and pleasure from 

 seasons as well as from scenes. Taken singly, each 

 object delights him whom we may call " the artist" in 

 the study of nature ; taken in their connexion and 

 succession, they delight and enlighten the natural 

 philosopher. It would be wrong to undervalue either 

 of these for the sake of the other. The man who 

 spends his whole life in dissecting flies, or writing the 

 biography of beetles, is as assuredly at work upon the 

 corner stone of philosophy, as he who is weighing the 

 earth, or measuring the heavens ; and universal ob- 

 servation is the line and the plummet, by which alone 

 the fabric of universal science can be builded erect 

 and stable. 



