JUDGMENT IN COLLECTING — MEMORY. 311 
productions found in his immediate neighbourhood, or in 
his own parish, or peculiar to the county ; but these, if he 
wishes to understand them, will dissipate his mind over 
every branch of zoology, and he will then find it expe- 
dient still farther to restrict his acquisitions; and thus he 
must ultimately be brought to that plan with which, asa 
collector, he should have begun. He must confine himself 
to one department of his favourite pursuit. It is better, 
therefore, to do that first, which generally will be done 
last ; supposing, of course, that his love for natural 
history continues. Let the country naturalist, therefore, 
make an early choice: the ornithology, the entomology, 
or the conchology of his native country have each their 
charms, and they lie before him. If he confines his 
_ attention to any one of these branches, he will not only 
feel more interest in its undivided pursuit, but he will 
understand it better, and he may ultimately make useful, 
and even important discoveries. But let him not aim 
at more than one department. British entomology alone, 
to be well understood, is the study of a life. Hence it 
has become much more common, than formerly, among 
our young naturalists, to confine the attention even to 
one particular order of insects. The learned and vene- 
rable father of entomology in this country, Mr. Kirby, 
must have devoted several years to the study of the 
Hymenoptera, before he could have written his valuable 
descriptions of the British bees. If the student resolved 
to restrict himself to either of the orders of Coleoptera 
Lepidoptera or Diptera, he would find that any one 
of these would give him full occupation for several years. 
The more, in short, that our study of nature is con- 
centrated upon a given object, the more are we likely 
to make discoveries, and the more interested shall we 
ourselves feel in the pursuit. The mere collector heaps 
together materials which he neither understands nor 
knows how to use: the very extent of his possessions, 
unnamed and unarranged, ultimately engenders discon- 
tent, and not unfrequently terminates in disgust. 
(377.) A retentive memory is a desirable, although 
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