80 THE Orrawa NATURALIST. [July 
Ice-bound and snow-covered, then, as those northern regions 
are during the long winter, they yet offer to the observer a rich 
field where nature reveals the living objects she has placed there ; 
and the opportunities to observe which the short milder season 
affords, are many. It is primordially a place for a field-naturalist: 
a place, moreover, where the mind is aroused to the urgent need 
on the part of naturalists (and this the more so on account of the 
present state of zoological knowledge) for closer and deeper ob- 
servations, whatever the nature of their respective researches may 
happen to be. In this. connection, a few preliminary remarks 
may be in place, and are offered suggestive of what may be ex- 
pected in an address which purports to deal with animal forms 
many of which have had little if any attention, and which are 
made in order to show that as yet the work of a naturalist in the 
Hudson Bay region and in the more northern and eastern loca- 
tions, is that of a pioneer. 
The mere closet naturalist lacxs the experience of the field 
naturalist. Were one, it is true, to confine himself to a laboratory 
or a library, having iittle desire to go out of doors, were he simply — 
to read popular works on natural history, or to pore over more 
advanced zoological treatises, he might familiarise his mind with 
general theories of classification, or with outlines of comparative 
structure. In other words, a student of this sort might gain a 
fairly accurate conception of the sub-kingdoms into which the 
animal creation is divisible. But if he thus limited his studies, 
having little ambition to walk even a mile from his home 
in order to stroll through the woods or along the banks of a 
stream, his knowledge would be curtailed and inaccurate. On 
the other hand, one who values the recorded researches of others, 
and who, whilst not dependent upon books, reads or refers to 
them, knowing that they contain many corroborated facts con- 
cerning the forms and habits of animals ; but who at the same 
time is independent enough to follow living beings to their haunts, 
to learn at first hand from themselves, will find his stock of 
information accumulating and resting upon a _ surer basis. 
Nevertheless, one who carries on original researches will discover 
how little, relatively, he knows, and the more deeply he pursues 
knowledge in the realms of natural history, the more he will see, 
