302 PRACTICAL AND SCIENTIFIC ZOOIiOGY. 



being armed with a knowledge of its secret modes of 

 doing injury, he is the best man for applying a success- 

 ful remedy. As for its scientific name, that gives him 

 no thought ; he cares not whether the name be old or 

 new ; it is sufficient for him that it gives to the insect 

 an appellation. He will walk through a magnificent 

 museum with no more curiosity than is felt by an or- 

 dinary person ; and as for systems, and technical terms, 

 " he cannot away with them." He wonders how people 

 can count the joints of an antenna of an insect, measure 

 the quill-feathers of a bird, reckon the grinders of a 

 quadruped, or number the rays of a fish's fin. His 

 chief, if not his only interest is in the life of an animal. 

 While others are poring over ponderous tomes of cramp 

 technicalities, he is out in the woods, capturing an insect, 

 or looking after a bird. He has, in fine, either a general 

 disregard or a thorough contempt — according to the 

 construction of his mind — for systems and their authors, 

 and leaves to them to give what names they please to 

 his discoveries. 



(36'8.) Such are the general characteristics of a prac- 

 tical, or, as he is now usually termed, a field naturalist, 

 of the present day, as gathered from the sentiments con- 

 veyed by this class of observers in our natural-history 

 periodicals. There is not only much to commend in 

 such pursuits, as regards their effect upon the individual^ 

 but the facts which they bring to light form a very ma- 

 terial part of the history of nature. This is apparent 

 from the writings of White of Selborne, Le Vaillant, 

 D'Azara, and Wilson ; all of whom, with little deviation, 

 studied nature upon this plan. They were essentially 

 field naturalists. They took to themselves that depart- 

 ment of research which called them into the open air : 

 and they are, of all others, the best qualified to write the 

 natural history of species. Every thing, however, past 

 this hue of enquiry, is beyond their province. Those 

 who have been really eminent as original observers, 

 candidly confess this, and presume not to entertain the 

 preposterous idea that theirs is the only department of 



