654 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Dec 28, iS 



carefully, we must look for the essential character of a 

 man of science, not so much in the things with which 

 he is concerned, as in his aim and method. Whoever 

 strives diligently and successfully to attain to knowledge 

 of the laws of nature by the observation and interpreta- 

 tion of the phenomena of nature, may claim to be a man 

 of science. So possibly may others too. Our definition 

 does not pretend to be complete. It excludes the student 

 of arithmetic and algebra, whom most people take to be 

 occupied with science. But any definition of science 

 which includes these, includes logic too, and becomes so 

 wide and abstract as to have little or no practical value. 

 Let us keep to our confessedly incomplete definition, 

 which is right and definite as to what it includes, though 

 probably not as to what it excludes. 



' Is it merely a question of words which we are raising ? 

 Not if we are engaged in clearing up our notions as to 

 the characteristics of a particular sort of productive 

 workers, and of the way in which they become produc- 

 tive. Let us give that turn to our discussion. Have 

 any men signally promoted the increase of natural know- 

 ledge in any other way than by combined observation 

 and interpretation of natural phenomena ? Some of us 

 will be inclined to say, Yes. We shall think of men 

 who have heaped up stores of information for the use 

 of others, men like Schwabe, with his fifty years' obser- 

 vation of sun-spots, or Flamsteed, with his catalogue of 

 of 2884 stars. We cannot refuse such men a place 

 among productive scientific workers. They worked 

 with scientific tools and for scientific ends, even if they 

 only collected information for other men to use. Well, 

 then, what about the meteorological observer, who 

 daily, at 9 and 3, or 10 or 4, sets down the readings of 

 the thermometer and barometer ? Is he a man of 

 science too ? We must concede that he is in intention, 

 at least. Whether he is in fact will depend upon the 

 use to which his observations are put. If they accumulate 

 and fill portfolios, until improved methods drive them 

 out of notice without leading to a single generalisation 

 or prediction, we must refuse to confer upon the observer 

 a place among productive workers for science. He has 

 merely piled up observations which nobody has been 

 able to use. 



We have entered upon this discussion because we 

 have reason to believe that thousands of patient ob- 

 servers are busy in the name of science with toilsome 

 work of this kind, work which is and will remain un- 

 productive, because unstimulated by any questions of 

 interest to science. In many a quiet parsonage and 

 country-house recorders have been long at work with a 

 patience which only requires the inspiration of a clear 

 and definite object to make it highly respectable. They 

 hoped, and still hope, that they are collecting data useful 

 to scientific meteorology, but, alas ! the meteorological dis- 

 coverers of the century, Redfield and Buys Ballot, and 

 Buchan, have put and answered the great questions 

 without their help. 



Will it be so with the thousands of diligent naturalists 

 who are preparing county lists ? They believe them- 

 selves to be storing up valuable facts for the use of 

 future generations. Have they any definite ground for 

 their belief that the discoverers of some future age will 

 care for their tables and lists of species ? Hitherto the 

 scientific study of distribution has led men like Wallace 

 and Huxley to merge the British Isles with Europe and 

 North Africa and mor.t of Asia, and perhaps with North 

 America, in one vast northern province. The smallest 



scientific subdivision of that natural history region in- 

 cludes ten times the area of the British Isles. Will the 

 naturalist of the future ever treat scientifically units so 

 small as 100 square miles of British land, defined by no 

 natural barriers, and without characteristic species ? If 

 this is extensively done, there may be hope for the list- 

 compiling naturalist, but it may be doubted whether 

 there is any room for so encouraging a supposition. We 

 shall perhaps be told that scientific questions continually 

 arise which require the collection of hosts of minute 

 facts, and the assertion is justified by the whole history 

 of science. But would it not be better to put the questions 

 first and collect the information actually wanted to 

 answer them ? Life is too short to prepare elaborate 

 answers to questions which have never been, and per- 

 haps never will be raised. The local naturalist who works 

 with definite questions in his mind will work to profit. 

 Without such questions he will probably beat the air. 

 How great and desirable a change would come over our 

 field-clubs if we ceased to record occurrences of species in 

 small areas of arbitrary definition, and began to inquire 

 why particular species are limited to certain spots. Why 

 does a particular alga or dipterous larva haunt one 

 stream only in the neighbourhood ? Will it bear trans- 

 portation ? Is it a matter of food, or purity of water, or 

 of enemies ? What tempts the wall-rue fern to occupy 

 the crevices of an old wall ? Is it because of the lime in 

 the crumbling mortar, or because of the nitrates, or 

 because of a special exposure, or because of right 

 conditions of moisture ? In attempting to answer such 

 questions the student will be tempted to observe and 

 compare his experiences. He will work to purpose, 

 with a definite object and with his attention well awake. 

 How unlike the paralysing occupation of setting down a 

 list of species with localities, studying the features of 

 every capture merely so far as is necessary to apply the 

 long Latin or Greek name without error, and trusting to 

 a long-distant morrow for the recompense of labour 

 which hitherto profits no one, and may never benefit a 

 single student of nature. " To place stuffed birds 

 and beasts in glass cases, to arrange insects in 

 cabinets, and dried plants in drawers," says Sir John 

 Lubbock, " is merely the drudgery and preliminary of 

 study." May we not speak even more coldly of the 

 cataloguing of names and localities ? He goes on to say 

 that "to watch their habits, to understand their 

 relations to one another, to study their instincts and 

 intelligence, to ascertain their adaptations and their re- 

 lations to the forces of nature, to realise what the world 

 appears to them — these constitute, as it seems to me at 

 least, the true interest of natural history." It is such 

 wise words as these which we would impress upon the 

 young naturalist who has not yet finally chosen his path. 

 We would entreat him to inquire whether the pedantry 

 of natural history has not proved just as barren of 

 results as the pedantry of classical scholarship, and 

 whether what is most fascinating in natural history, 

 namely, the attempt to solve questions of real human 

 interest, is not at the same time the truly scientific side 

 of the subject. 



INSECT ARTILLERY. 



SOMETIMES, when one is wandering along a river 

 bank, and turning over such large stones as may 

 lie near the edge of the water, a very remarkable sight 

 may be witnessed, Out rushes a handsome little blue 



