INTRODUCTION. 3 



professional. The impetus given by the new 

 doctrine has not only greatly multiplied the num- 

 ber of earnest professional workers, but it has also 

 increased the mass of our knowleds:e to such an 

 extent that no little perseverance is necessary to 

 enable a beginner to master the initial details of 

 any branch of natural history in which he hopes 

 to excel. It is one thinsf to cull fresh knowledsfe 

 in the open fields, but it is quite another, and re- 

 quires sterner stuff than a spirit of dilettanteism, 

 to wrestle with dry bones and technicalities in a 

 stuffy library or museum. Again, the increased 

 energy given to research is rapidly using up a 

 great deal of the material upon which our fathers 

 busied themselves. Their happy hunting-grounds 

 have been surveyed, mapped, and annexed by the 

 speculative professor, and the fauna and flora 

 thereon catalogued with a business-like precision 

 which would do credit to an auctioneer. The 

 naturalist who is content with merely collecting 

 and classifying natural objects now finds that he 

 must go very far afield if he is to be more than 

 an imitator of other men's labours. 



Furthermore, it must, I fear, be admitted that 

 some things, which are not I'oses, have been 

 strewed in the path of the amateur naturalist by 



