178 GLAUCUS; OR, 



suggestible motive or cause, well examined. A rich 

 fruit of result, often new and curious and unex- 

 pected, will, I am sure, reward any one who studies 

 living animals in this way. The most interesting 

 parts, by far, of published Natural History are those 

 minute, but graphic particulars, which have been 

 gathered up by an attentive watching of individual 

 animals." 



Mr. Gosse's own books, certainly, give proof 

 enough of this. We need only direct the reader to 

 his exquisitely humorous account of the ways and 

 works of a captive soldier-crab,* to show them how 

 much there is to be seen, and how full N"ature is also 

 of that ludicrous element of which we spoke above. 

 And, indeed, it is in this form of Natural History: 

 not in mere classification, and the finding out of 

 names, and quarrelings as to the first discovery of 

 that beetle or this butter-cup, — too common, alas ! 

 among mere closet-collectors, — " endless genealogies," 

 to apply St. Paul's words by no means irreverently 

 or fancifully, " which do but gender strife ;" — not in 



* Aquarium, p. 163. 



