1330 Birds. 



the other must be also. But this, I would remind him, is but shallow reasoning and 

 inadmissable in argument, to say nothing of the question still remaining unsolved, 

 whether the two species are the same in habit ; and that, therefore, if the black one's 

 note is, by observation, melodious, that of the white must of necessity be so too. Pass- 

 ing over, I say, this important problem, which, were we to analyze it, might afford us 

 much additional information, and leaving unnoticed every ultimate result, I would 

 lastly observe, that, in a record of facts (which experience has shown is so admirably 

 supplied in ' The Zoologist) it is indispensably necessary that facts alone should be 

 adhered to, otherwise how can we distinguish between what is true and false ? The 

 place is supplied by no other periodical of the day, and it is to it, therefore, that we 

 must go for much valuable information which would otherwise be unrecorded and lost. 

 And if I might here add a few words in its favour, and answer those paltry objections 

 which many vain-glorious pretenders have ignorantly urged against it, who would 

 hoist the banner of what they call " science " over an " accumulation of mere facts," 

 and endeavour to crush to the ground even Nature herself by the distorted image of 

 her, which they themselves have erected, crying aloud " cui bono " to all our observa- 

 tions ; if I might here declare but one opinion amongst a thousand, which, each day, 

 are gaining ground perceptibly, and which will advance in the world as knowledge 

 progresses onward, in spite of all their cavilling ; I would ask such men, on what 

 firmer rock they would establish themselves than truth ? If fact, undisturbed by 

 theory (which is the very essence of truth, and of which science in its noblest form, is, 

 in the first instance, itself composed) be not worthy of record, — what is ? However 

 promiscuous and unarranged facts may be, still they are " facts," and ought to be re- 

 garded as such. Nor because they are small, ought they to be considered beneath our 

 notice, for have not the grandest discoveries been made through study of the simplest 

 truths ? Would not Newton have borne testimony to this in the theory of gravitation — 

 one of the mightiest discoveries which the human mind has hitherto been capable of? 

 And, if we can adduce examples of other truths brought to light by the same means, 

 I ask any candid person to consider, whether, as the world advances in knowledge, 

 still greater men may not yet arise and open to view, even through the humblest me- 

 dia, truths as yet undreamt of, and only slumbering to be uproused by a second New- 

 ton to a more glorious existence ? Should then practical naturalists be still branded 

 with the names of " mere observers," " species-men," and the like; let them remem- 

 ber how high a privilege it is to be classed under such denominations. Was it but the 

 work of man on which their labours were expended— some useless question of mytho- 

 logy — or some vain and endless discussion of technicalities, on which nothing depends, 

 and from which no good can be derived, and which only cramps the mind, and renders 

 it unfit for receiving wider and nobler truths: then indeed might their fears be 

 not without foundation, that their labour is partially in vain. But in Nature nothing 

 happens by chance. Uulike the works of art, which are merely the results of indivi- 

 dual knowledge, and (what is shallower still) of individual taste ; there are in Nature, 

 from the humblest to the loftiest objects, fixed laws by which every thing is regulated 

 and balanced, and without which nothing could stand. To discover these laws and 

 afterwards to deduce grander truths for our own benefit, is undoubtedly the cause for 

 which those laws were established. And, inasmuch as this can only be accomplished 

 by an accurate observation of facts, how can that be better attained than by affording 

 a general receptacle into which every kind of truth may be received ? For, although 

 piecemeal, it is of comparatively small importance, yet when collected into a body, it 



