THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



do? there is no original before him, a glance at 

 which would decide; he sketches on a scrap of 

 paper by his side two or three forms of head ; 

 perhaps he shews the paper to a brother officer, 

 with a question, "Which of these do you think 

 most like the head?" and then he puts the one 

 selected in his sketch, and so of other details. 



Those who are not used to drawing will think 

 I am making a caricature. I am doing no such 

 thing. I have been accustomed for nearly forty 

 years to draw animals from the life ; and the pub- 

 lic are able to judge of my power of representing 

 what I see ; but I am quite sure that if I were 

 asked to depict an object unfamiliar to me, which 

 I had been looking at for a quarter of an hour, 

 without thinking that I should have to draw it, 

 I should do, in fifty points of detail, just what I 

 have supposed the officer to have done. Let my 

 reader try it. Get hold of one of your acquaint- 

 ances, whom you know to be a skilful, but non- 

 professional artist, whose attention has never been 

 given to flowers; take him into your green-house, 

 and shew him some very beautiful thing in blos- 

 som ; keep him looking at it for some ten minutes 

 without a hint of what you are thinking of, then 

 take him into your drawing-room, put paper and 

 colours before him, and say, "Make me a sketch of 

 that plant you have just seenl" When it is done, 

 take it to a botanist, and ask him to give you 

 the characters of the genus and species from the 

 sketch ; or compare it yourself with the original, 

 and note how many and what ludicrous blunders 

 had been made in details, while there was a fair 

 general correctness. 



Viewed in this light, it will be manifest how 

 inefficient the sketch made on board the Dadalua 

 must be for minute characters ; and particularly 

 328 



