302 PRACTICAL AND SCIENTIFIC ZOOLOGY. 
being armed with a knowledge of its secret modes of 
doing injury, he is the best man for applying a success- 
ful remedy. As for its scientific name, that gives him 
no thought ; he cares not whether the name be old or 
new ; it is sufficient for him that it gives to the insect 
an appellation. He will walk through a magnificent 
museum with no more curiosity than is felt by an or- 
dinary person ; and as for systems, and technical terms, 
‘he cannot away with them.” He wonders how people 
ean count the joints of an antenna of an insect, measure 
the quill-feathers of a bird, reckon the grinders of a: 
quadruped, or number the rays of a fish’s fin. His 
chief, if not his only interest is in the /ife of an animal. 
While others are poring over ponderous tomes of cramp 
technicalities, he is out in the woods, capturing an insect, 
or looking after a bird. He has, in fine, either a general 
disregard or a thorough contempt—according to the 
construction of his mind —for systems and their authors, 
and leaves to them to give what names they please to 
his discoveries. 
(368.) Such are the general characteristics of a prac- 
tical, or, as he is now usually termed, a field naturalist, 
of the present day, as gathered from the sentiments con- 
veyed by this class of observers in our natural-history 
periodicals. There is not only much to commend in 
such pursuits, as regards their effect upon the individual, 
but the facts which they bring to light form a very ma- 
terial part of the history of nature. This is apparent 
from the writings of White of Selborne, Le Vaillant, 
D’Azara, and Wilson ; all of whom, with little deviation, 
studied nature upon this plan. They were essentially 
field naturalists. They took to themselves that depart- 
ment of research which called them into the open air: 
and they are, of all others, the best qualified to write the 
natural history of species. Every thing, however, past 
this line of enquiry, is beyond their province. Those 
who have been really eminent as original observers, 
candidly confess this, and presume not to entertain the 
preposterous idea that theirs is the only department of 
