INTRODUCTION. 



own eyes. Want of leisure, and probably want of 

 knowledge, have prevented us from following up the 

 curiosity which for a moment was excited. And yet 

 some such accident has made men Naturalists, in the 

 highest meaning of the term. Bonnet, evidently 

 Spealring of himself, Bays, " I knew a Naturalist, 

 who, when he was seventeen years of age, having 

 heard of the operations of the ant-lion, began by 

 doubting them. He had no rest till he had examined 

 into them ; and he verified them, he admired them, 

 he discovered new facts, and soon became the disciple 

 and the friend of the. Pliny of France*" (Reaumur). 

 It is not the happy fortune of many to be able to de- 

 vote themselves exclusively to the study of nature, 

 unquestionably the most fascinating of human em- 

 ployments ; but almost every one may acquire suffi- 

 cient knowledge to be able to derive a high grati- 

 fication from beholding the more common operations 

 of animal life. His materials for contemplation are 

 always before him. Some weeks ago we made an 

 excursion to West Wood, near Shooter's Hill, ex- 

 pressly for the purpose of observing the insects we 

 might meet with in the wood; but we had not got far 

 among the bushes, when heavy rain came on. We 

 immediately sought shelter among the boughs of 

 some thick underwood, composed of oak, birch, and 

 aspen; but we could not meet with a single insect, 

 not even a gnat or a fly, sheltered under the leaves. 

 Upon looking more narrowly, however, into the 

 bushes which protected us, we soon found a variety 

 of interesting objects of study. The oak abounded 

 in galls, several of them quite new to us ; while the 

 leaves of the birch and the aspen exhibited the 

 curious serpentine paths of the minute mining cater- 

 pillars. When we had exhausted the narrow field of 



* Contemplation de la Nature, part ii., chap. 42. 



