THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 43 



I question, nevertheless, whether he would not have 

 lost more than he would have gained by a different 

 training. It might have made him a more learned 

 systematizer : but would it have quickened in him 

 that " seeing eye " of the true soldier and sportsman, 

 which makes Montagu's descriptions indelible word- 

 pictures, instinct with life and truth ? " There is 

 no question," says Mr. E. Forbes, after bewailing 

 the vagueness of most naturalists, " about the iden- 

 tity of any animal Montagu described He 



was a forward-looking philosopher ; he spoke of 

 every creature as if one exceeding like it, yet dif- 

 ferent from it, would be washed up by the waves 

 next tide. Consequently his descriptions are per- 

 manent." Scientific men will recognise in this the 

 highest praise which can be bestowed, because it 

 attributes to him that highest faculty — The Ai^f of 

 Seeing : but the study and the book would not have 

 given that. It is God's gift, wheresoever educated : 

 but its true school-room is the camp and the ocean, 

 the prairie and the forest ; active, self-helping life, 

 which can grapple with Nature herself: not merely 



