8 WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 



these three classes because from them, probably 

 more than from any others one can name, are 

 drawn the people who make a hobby of some 

 branch of natural history. The failure of the 

 schoolboy is owing partly to the inveterate con- 

 servatism of our educational methods, and partly 

 to the slovenly way in which science is still taught 

 in schools. To the sportsman, as a rule, reading 

 is uncongenial ; and books bristling with new and 

 technical terms and full of half-digested theories 

 are an abomination. As to the average country 

 parson, he still seems to think not only that the 

 Darwinian theory is a disputable doctrine, but 

 that, unless filtered and diluted by ecclesiastical 

 wisdom, it smacks of infidelit}'. 



By-and-by, when doctrines which are still novel 

 to most people (although forty years old, and to 

 many of us as much a matter of course as the law-s 

 of gravitation) find a place in the elements of 

 knowledge absorbed by every youth, we may 

 expect most of these difficulties to disappear. 

 But in the meantime they may be depriving us of 

 some second Gilbert White, who, from his country 

 parsonage, might send us news of a thousand 

 delightful and invaluable facts which would be 

 beyond the reach of any but a cultured observer 

 who lives among the fields and woods. 



