INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXI 



terested, and thoughtful, who pointed forward to Darwin in the 

 success with which he realized the complexity of intet-relations 

 in nature. Many a traveller, even among his contemporaries, dis- 

 covered more new plants and animals than the author of Cosimos, 

 but none approached him as an all-round naturalist, able to look 

 out on all orders of facts with keenly intelligent eyes, a man, more- 

 over, in whom devotion to science never dulled poetic feeling. His 

 work is of real importance in the history of geographical distri- 

 bution, for he endeavoured to interpret the peculiarities of the 

 various faunas in connection with the peculiar environment of the 

 different regions — a consideration which is at least an element in 

 the solution of some of the problems of distribution. It is especially 

 important in regard to plants, and one may perhaps say that Hum- 

 boldt, by his vivid pictures of the vegetable "physiognomy" of 

 different regions, and by his observations on the relations between 

 climate and flora, laid the foundations of the scientific study of the 

 geographical distribution of plants. We find in some of his Char- 

 akterbilder, for example in his Views of Nature, the prototype 

 of those synthetic pictures which give Brehm's popular lectures 

 their peculiar interest and value. 



IV. The Specialist Type. — ^It would say little for scientific 

 discipline if it were true that a man learned, let us say, in zoology, 

 could spend years in a new country without having something 

 fresh to tell us about matters outside of his specialism — the rocks, 

 the plants, and the people. But it is not true. There have been 

 few great travellers who have been narrow specialists, and one 

 might find more than one case of a naturalist starting on his travels 

 as a zoologist and returning an anthropologist as well. Yet it is 

 evident enough that few men can be master of more than one craft. 

 There have been few travellers like Humboldt, few records like 

 Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle (1831-6). Hence we recognize more 

 and more as we approach our own day that naturalist-travellers 

 have been successful either as specialists, or, on the other hand, in 

 so far as they have furnished material for generalization (Type V.). 

 The specialism may of course take various forms: a journey may 

 be undertaken by one who is purely an ornithologist, or it may 



