THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 7 



company for dukes and princes. Nay, the study 

 is now more than honourable ; it is (what to many 

 readers will be a far higher recommendation) even 

 fashionable. Every well-educated person is eager to 

 know something at least of the wonderful organic 

 forms which surround him in every sunbeam and 

 every pebble ; and books of lN"atural History are 

 ■finding their way more and more into drawing- 

 rooms and school-rooms, and exciting greater thirst 

 for a knowledge which, even twenty years ago, was 

 considered superfluous for all but the professional 

 student. 



What a change from the temper of two genera- 

 tions since when the naturalist was looked on as 

 a harmless enthusiast, wlio went " bug-hunting," 

 simply because he had not spirit to follow a fox ! 

 There are those alive who can recollect an amiable 

 man being literally bullied out of the New Forest, 

 because he dared to make a collection (at this 

 moment, we believe, in some unknown abyss of that 

 great Avernus, the British Museum) of fossil shells 

 from those very Hordwell Cliffs, for exploring which 



