144 YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS UNION. 



record them for future comment. The true naturahst, as he is 

 ready to receive help, so is he ready to impart it, and thus 

 encourag-e and assist others, who, if left to themselves, would 

 probably be lost to us. 



Another g"reat advantag"e arising- from union is. that it 

 tends to widen our ideas, and keep us from becoming- narrow- 

 minded. Life is too short, and other eng-ag-ements too 

 numerous to allow us to excel, or even to do g-ood work in all 

 branches of natural history. Geolog-y, botany, and zoolog-y, as 

 now studied, supply us with so many questions awaiting- 

 solution that it is rather in some department of one of them, 

 than in the whole subject (still less in all three), that the best 

 results can be looked for. Still, there is no object in nature 

 which is without interest, if intellig-ently examined, and the fact 

 that we are specially interested in the study most cong-enial to 

 us, need not be a bar to our learning- something- of other studies, 

 with which we are less familiar. The earth, the plants which 

 g-row on it, the animals which inhabit it are mutualh' dependent 

 and therefore whatever knowledg-e we may g-ain with reg-ard to 

 any of these subjects will be a help to the better understanding- 

 of the remainder. If, during- a joint excursion into the country, 

 we keep our eyes and ears open, we shall see far more objects 

 of interest, and hear far more about them, and gain far more 

 knowledg-e of them, than we should in a solitar_v walk. Even in 

 our own special department others find what we miss, and point 

 out particulars which we perhaps have not noticed ; and in 

 other departments, if we learn nothing- else, we may learn this, 

 that the observations and researches made by their adherents are 

 as interesting- to them, as ours are to us. If it be of interest to the 

 g-eolog-ist to find a stratum, a fossil, or a boulder, where it was 

 not before known to occur, it is no less so to the botanist to find 

 a new plant, or an old one under new conditions ; and to the 

 zoolog-ist to meet with a bird, an insect, or a shell, not hitherto 

 recorded for the district in which he is working-. If we are 

 naturalists of broad mind, we shall not treat as of little or no 

 account what is outside our own field of work, but shall be g"lad 

 to learn all we can of nature as a whole, to sympathise with 

 those who are working- in other fields, and to recog-nise and 

 welcome their discoveries and discussions of them, as 

 contributions to the common stock of knowledg-e. Membership 

 in a Union such as ours is a preservative against narrow- 

 mindedness, as tending- to widen our view of nature as a whole, 

 and lead us to take interest in all additions to our knowledg-e of 

 it, from whatever source they may come. ' The most important 

 secrets of nature,' says one of very hig-h scientific attainments, 

 ' are often hidden away in unexpected places ' ; and says 

 another, ' it can hardly be pressed forcibly enoug-h on the 

 attention of the student of nature, that there is scarcely any 



