INTRODUCTION. i 
the Hunter-Naturalist, even under my own comprehensive 
definition of his mission, any independence of his pale 
Brother, so far as his relations to absolute science are con- 
cerned. His individual observations would soon become, to 
the stern 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. 
Yet from my earliest childhood I have felt individually 
wronged when constantly compelled to turn from the dry, 
inert and formal methods of “the Books,” 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 
Natural World, which have never yet failed me in their truth. 
Thus in assuming my position with regard to the method of 
treating the subjects of Natural History, to be observed in 
this work, the whole matter has resolved itself with me into 
the simple question whether “lion-heart” and “eagle-eye”’ 
shall be banished from heroic poetry, because they lack the 
learned prefixes of Aguille and Leonis—or sentimental 
rhymes resign all images of “plaintive Philomels,” “ cooing 
Doves,” and “Gazelle eyes,”’ because they are not defined to 
the people according to the “dead letter” of Museum cata- 
logues?—or, indeed, whether it be vitally essential to the 
general purposes of human enlightenment, that “all 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 
