VI PREFACE. 



inducing a thirst for more precise and more extended information. I 

 was neither so sanguine nor so vain as to imagine my attempt would 

 be attended with any prompt or strongly-marked success : I was too 

 well aware that I had no access to the readers of the merely popular, 

 and that the eyes and ears of the bulk of the merely scientific were 

 hermetically sealed against my labours, many instances coming to my 

 knowledge in which men of this class boasted, as a highly merito- 

 rious fact, that they did not see, or did not read, or did not take the 

 ' Zoologist.' 



As time has rolled on, a more influential class of naturalists has 

 arisen than either the unreflecting seeker for a half-hour's amusement, 

 careless whether it be supplied by fiction or fact, or the technical pro- 

 fessor who would invest the science in a garb of mystery. This large 

 and rapidly increasing class are at work from one end of the kingdom 

 to the other, in organizing associations and establishing museums and 

 libraries, the great object of which is identical with that I have always 

 had so deeply at heart, the making Natural History a pursuit for the 

 shopkeeper and the mechanic. It is my firm conviction that there is 

 no study more ennobling than this ; none more likely to elevate the 

 moral dignity of man ; and there is no reason why any station in life 

 should be excluded from its beneficial influence. Entertaining such 

 views, it is with heart-felt satisfaction that I have watched the progress 

 of numberless institutions called into existence by that energetic and 

 influential class of my readers to which I have just alluded. When 

 so many are labouring in the same cause, it may perhaps appear in- 

 vidious to mention one, and yet I cannot avoid the temptation to 

 name Mr. George Ransome, of Ipswich, whose well- directed exertions 

 have done more to improve and exalt the intellect and character of 

 his fellow-townsmen, than any warrior or legislator now basking in the 

 brightest sunshine of popularity. It is to such men as Mr. Ransome 

 we must look up as the true friends of our cause : it is they only who 

 have the power to make Natural History a general study, and it is 

 therefore the bounden duty of all who have the slightest influeuce with 

 their neighbours, to lend a helping hand in gaining members to such 



