336 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
Ignorant persons, and no less those naturalists who study natural 
history in books only, acknowledge the differences existing between 
species, but believe that the actions and labours of the individuals of 
a species invariably correspond. Such a view is possible when you 
have only seen things from above and afar, in a sublime generality. 
But when the naturalist takes in hand his pilgrim’s staff—when, as 
a modest, resolute, indefatigable pilgrim of Nature, he assumes his 
shoes of iron—all things change their aspect: he sees, notes, com- 
pares numerous individual works in the labours of each species, seizes 
their points of difference, and soon arrives at the conclusion which 
logic had already suggested,—that, in truth, no one thing resembles 
another. In those works which appear identical to inexperienced 
eyes, a Wilson and an Audubon have detected the diversities of an art 
very variable—according to means and places, according to the 
characters and talents of the artists—in a spontaneous infinity. So 
extensive is the region of liberty, fancy, and ingegno. 
Let us hope that our collections will bring together several 
specimens of each species, arranged and classified according to the 
talent and progress of the individual, recording as near as may be the 
age of the birds which constructed the nests. 
If these boundless diversities do not result from unrestrained activ- 
ity and personal spontaneity, if you wish to refer them all to an iden- 
tical instinct, you must, to support so miraculous a theory, make us 
believe another miracle: that this instinct, although identical, pos- 
sesses the singular elasticity of accommodating and proportioning 
itself to a variety of circumstances which are incessantly changing, to 
an infinity of hazardous chances. 
What, then, will be the case if we find, in the history of animals, 
such an act of pretended instinct as supposes a resistance to that very 
course our instinctive nature would apparently desire? What will 
you say to the wounded elephant spoken of by Fouché d’Obsonville ? 
That judicious traveller, so utterly disinclined to romantic ten- 
dencies, saw an elephant in India, which, having been wounded in 
battle, went daily to the hospital that his wound might be dressed. 
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