INTRODUCTION. 5 



the Hunter-Naturalist, even under my own compreliensive 

 definition of his mission, any independence of his pale 

 Brother, so far as his relations to absolute science are con- 

 cerned. TTiH individual observations would soon become, to 

 the stem accuracy of practical classification, more crude 

 than savage myths; and his deductions vaguer than the 

 shadows of a day-dream — but that when submitted to this 

 colder, more learned, and deliberate analysis, his " facts" and 

 his "discoveries" have been inexorably technicalized. '* ' 



Tet from my earliest childhood I have felt individually 

 wronged when constantly compelled to turn from the dry, 

 inert and formal methods of " the Boolci," to the gay, sug- 

 gestive or subtile treatment of the Goldsmiths, Huberts and 

 St. Pierres, who have spoken so successfully for the People, 

 the charmed '• sesame" of Science — or else in hopeless sense 

 of the comparatively narrowed artificialities of each, have 

 thrown myself back, with a calmed and steadied enthusiasm, 

 upon the devouter study of those green and living pages of the 

 Xatural World, which have never yet failed me iu their truth. 



Thus in assuming my position with regard to the method of 

 treating the subjects of Xatural History, to be observed in 

 this work, the whole matter has resolved itself with me into 

 the simple question whether ''lion-heart" and "eagle-eve' 

 shall be banished from heroic poetry, because they lack the 

 learned prefixes of AquiUce and Leonis — or sentimental 

 rhymes resign all images of "plaintive Philomels," "cooing 

 Doves," and "GrazeUe eyes," because they are not defined to 

 the people according to the " dead letter" of Museum cata- 

 locnies? — or, indeed, whether it be vitally essential to the 

 general purposes of human enlightenment, that "aU the world" 

 should become strictly technical Naturalists, in the scientific 

 sense, before the many who possess an eye for the Beautiful, an 

 ear for its language, a spiritual recognition of its unities, and 

 heart for the joy it brings, can be admitted to its presence? 



It is thus the feeling has continued to grow with my 

 growth, and strengthen with my strength, that the Literature 



