PRE ENCE 
| 
When the present race of Devonshire Naturalists looks 
back, as it occasionally must, into past time, it finds reason 
to lament over the loss which their science has sustained in 
the vacuities occasioned by the death of many a bright 
example ofindustry, penetration, and research :—a Montagu, 
a Leach, a Turton has been called away from this field of 
eminence and usefulness, and all have long since passed 
into the deep and still repose of mortals. After that re- 
flection,—full of melancholy as it is,—the mind next 
enquires whether Nature, still prodigal of her charms, has 
been left unprovided with men of similar capacity and 
industry to prosecute in a connected manner the investiga- 
tion of our natural riches, and to proclaim from time to 
time that if their number is indeed exhaustible, the know- 
ledge of their varied histories is certainly infinite. If the 
former reflection were melancholy, this must be more so, 
for the memory wanders to and fro in search of substitutes 
and returns to us void,—none have arisen! :—we ourselves 
continue on in the old beaten track, departing sometimes 
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