THE WORKING-MAN NATURALIST OF 

 THE PAST 



THERE are to-day amongst the working classes a 

 large number of men who fully deserve the title 

 naturalist; they attend science classes, read at the 

 libraries, often have a small but well selected library of 

 their own, and both possess and know how to use a 

 microscope. These men, by careful use of spare time, a 

 keen delight in their hobby, and a determination to see 

 and find out for themselves, often have a more intimate 

 knowledge of wild nature than the systematic and aca- 

 demic scientists whose names figure in the scientific 

 journals. But about the middle of the last century 

 there flourished men of a very different type, whose 

 counterpart hardly exists to-day; a few, but only a few, 

 survive. They had few books, and indeed seldom referred 

 to books, though they took delight in clapping systematic 

 names to their hoarded specimens; they were collectors 

 and especially competitive collectors; their great pride 

 was the possession of rare specimens which their com- 

 panions had not got. 



The keen interest taken in sport, football in particular, 

 is largely responsible for the lack of enthusiasm about 

 natural science, though the artisan often takes pleasure 

 in seeing wild beasts and loves flowers and the songs of 

 birds. The working man, when not looking for the latest 

 winner, often reads short and generally erroneous para- 

 graphs about natural history in his Sunday paper, or in 

 the trashy paste-and-scissors journals, gleaning a smatter- 



