522 LETTER TO WILLIAM SWA INS ON, ESQ. 



We are told that Nature is the best of guides. I believe it. 



Climb then, with me, the loftiest trees ; range the dreary swamp ; 

 pursue the wild beasts over hill and dale; repair to alluvial mud- 

 flats ; follow the windings of creeks, and of the sea-shore ; and get 

 yourself let down the tremendous precipice in quest of zoological 

 knowledge. Worst come to the worst, this will at least gain you the 

 appellation of "Amateur" from the pen of supercilious theorists; an 

 honour not to be sneezed at in these our latter times. 



During your peregrinations, should you chance to fall in with your 

 American friend, who, you inform us, has pursued painting and the 

 study of Nature " with a genius and an ardour of which, in their 

 united effects, there is no parallel," do not fail to ask him how it 

 came to pass that when he added so largely to the wing of his bird 

 of Washington, he quite forgot to supply its tail with a proportional 

 elongation. 



If you find him communicative and in a good humour, you might 

 have a chat with him about his great horned owl, which, "at the 

 least noise, erects the tufts of its head." Our owls depress their tufts 

 when disturbed. But, for the life of you, don't say one word about 

 the multifarious group of wild beasts, which were present till after 

 day-break at the great pigeon slaughter ; where, he says, the noise 

 was so deafening, that " even the reports of the guns were seldom 

 heard." This would put him out of temper, and it might lead to 

 " unjustifiable personalities," by seeming to question his veracity. 



I trust you are now convinced that when you feel averse to place 

 a man's name in a favourable point of view, and at the same time 

 have no absolute necessity for putting it in an unfavourable one, the 

 safest plan to be pursued is to place it in no view at all. Had you 

 not introduced me to Dr Lardner in so unhandsome a manner, I 

 should have been the last man in the world to interrupt you in your 

 complicated theory of circles, and of types primary, types aberrant, 

 types grallatorial, types tenuirostral, types rasorial, and types suc- 

 torial 



In truth, I should really consider it lost time in me were I to 

 descant on the incomprehensibility of your favourite theories, seeing 

 that they have already heard the solemn proclamation of their death- 

 warrant from your own lips. ( Vide foregoing page of this letter.) 



