The imm nmuim: 



A Penny Weekly Magazine of Natural History. 



No. U3. AUGUST 5th, 1882. Vol. 3. 



THE STUDY OF NATU- 

 RAL HISTORY. 



TPIAT now, in the nineteenth cent- 

 ury, it should need any argument 

 to prove that the study of natural 

 history is of utility, is absurd and yet 

 true. But it is a fact that there are a 

 large number of people who look upon 

 the naturalist as a kind of go-between 

 a harmless lunatic, and a walking 

 curiosity shop. But the strangest 

 of all is, that those who have the power 

 have not the inclination, to make the 

 study of nature as popular as it really 

 ought to be. Yet while it cannot be 

 denied that there are a vast number of 

 people to whom natural history is as a 

 foreign language, and these people look 

 upon the naturalist with suspicious 

 awe, it must be admitted that these 

 people are getting fewer, and that 

 students of the great book are conse- 

 quently becoming more numerous. 



The man who looks upon the study 

 of natural history as a useless hobby 

 can never have given a moment's 

 thought to the subject, for if he had, 

 it must have been ap[)arent on every 



hand that it is not only a useful pur- 

 suit, but in many cases a most essential 

 one. But even to admit that it is only 

 a recreation, how very far it is in ad- 

 vance of most other recreations of the 

 present day ! I will not mention such 

 as horse racing, and all other kind of 

 racing, pigeon flying and shooting, and 

 all their consequent betting and misery ; 

 but take one of the higher recreations, 

 such as cricket, and compare it with 

 the study of natural history. Cricket 

 is physical exercise, and when you have 

 said that you have exhausted its 

 virtues ; but the student of nature has 

 both physical and mental exercise. 

 He is taught to observe and to admire 

 the grand and the sublime. His study 

 takes liim over hill and dale, through 

 pleasant fields and shady woodlands. 

 It takes the town operative out into 

 the balmy country, where not only his 

 mind is improved but his body strength- 

 ened, and he returns a better aud 

 and happier man. Let him dive into 

 the vast depths of the invisible world, 

 let him see the grand adaptation and 

 the wonderful, and if he be a man of 

 veneration it will make him tirmer imd 



