ii6 IN LOWER FLORIDA WILDS 



have too little general scientific knowledge, and 

 they care too little for the great scheme of nature. 

 In fact they are too little. They may slave on 

 the anatomy or heredity of a few things but they 

 neglect the larger questions of environment and 

 distribution. They are closet students, — scien- 

 tists, not naturalists; their whole occupation is 

 business, they find neither beauty nor charm in it. 

 They dig in a tunnel and see nature through a 

 pinhole. 



One of these scientists, a man well known as a 

 distinguished expert in his specialty, once aston- 

 ished me by saying : ' 'AH this talk about the beauty 

 and harmony of nature is nothing but pure bosh! 

 I do my work and make investigations as a lawyer 

 would on a case; it is simply business. I do it to 

 win my suit, to succeed, to make a reputation." 



I do not want to investigate nature as though I 

 were solving a problem in mathematics. I want 

 none of the element of business to enter into any of 

 my relations with it. I am not and cannot be a 

 scientific attorney. In my attempts to unravel its 

 mysteries I have a sense of reverence and devotion, 

 I feel as if I were on enchanted ground. And 

 whenever any of its mysteries are revealed to me 



