322 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



" Churches, monuments, tombs, castles, old houses, bridges, 

 streets, ruins, historic documents, coins, paintings, carvings, very 

 old people. 



11 Celebrated trees, loggan stones, rocks, caves, geological 

 sections. 



11 Effects of lightning, storms, floods, landslips, earthquakes, &c. 



" Hare birds, beasts, fishes, plants, and fossils, remains of 

 pre-historic men and animals." 



The work pleading to be done is, in fact, so overwhelmingly- 

 extensive that it may be refreshing to hear of some work pleading 

 to be not done. For fostering a love of natural history, the 

 ideal method long practised was to encourage young people, and 

 beginners in general, to make collections of eggs and birds, of 

 butterflies and beetles, of flowers and fossils. It still remains 

 absolutely essential that a student should have materials for his 

 study. But the enormous increase in the number of collectors, 

 often having only a commercial or other quite unscientific object 

 in view, has made it necessary for the lovers of nature to protest 

 loudly against rapacity and ravage. Of some butterflies it has 

 been lately said that " their extinction will only be checked by 

 the extinction of ' the mere collector ' and the dealer who supplies 

 him." As for eggs and birds, that zeal for rare specimens which, 

 in a former age, would have qualified a man to be president of a 

 learned society, is now more likely to subject him to prosecutions 

 and penalties. That is, perhaps, for us the necessary way of 

 forming a healthy public opinion, just as our ancestors thought 

 that scourge and gibbet, rack and faggot, must be freely used to 

 keep the social machine in order. Of course I know that revenge 

 is sweet, and that it is delectable to bring others round to our 

 way of thinking under compulsion. Still our Union will be 

 content to produce the effect rather in a different manner, by 

 spreading knowledge, by showing that it is for the common 

 benefit and general happiness not to have the fauna and flora of 

 the district devastated, and by gradually persuading the spirit of 

 the age that things rare and strange and beautiful, when open to 

 all, should be under the protection of all, and should be appro- 

 priated only for legitimate use, and not sacrificed to greediness 

 or vanity. 



One other point must be mentioned, which concerns the 



