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The Naturalist. 



it ; and, similarly, before we can study natural productions we must 

 procure specimens to study, for I need hardly say that no satisfactory 

 knowledge of them can be attained by reading alone : we must have 

 the objects themselves to see and handle. Beyond this, however, I 

 maintain that the making of collections may be made not only a 

 pleasant recreation, but a mental discipline, and a means of advancing 

 the sum of human knowledge. Were it merely a recreation, the 

 collecting of specimens of natural history would deserve encourage- 

 ment as an innocent and healthful pastime. Some of the happiest 

 hours of my life have been spent in hunting after plants and 

 fossils, and a taste for such simple pleasures which leave no sting 

 behind them, is in itself a source of happiness by no means to be 

 despised. Compare the amount of pleasure which a holiday trip 

 affords to the man who sees something to interest him at every turn, 

 and to the man who has no object but to kill the time. It does not 

 affect the naturalist that most of the well-thumbed novels which 

 compose the scanty stock of the seaside circulating library have lost 

 one or more volumes out of the three ; he has resources within him- 

 self, and the treasures which he obtains form pleasant mementos of 

 the places he visits, which, when he looks over his cabinets in years 

 to come, will call back delightful recollections of days gone by. 



I think it will be found that to set any one to work to make a 

 collection, is the most likely way to get him to take such an interest 

 in the objects he collects as will induce him to study them more 

 deeply. Acquisitiveness — the desire to be able to call a thing our 

 own — is one of the strongest propensities of human nature, not less 

 so in Yorkshire than elsewhere, — and, in its proper place, is a very 

 useful one ; moreover, one can hardly make a collection and name th& 

 specimens, without learning at least something about their structure 

 and habits. There is a difference, however, in this respect between 

 different classes of objects : for instance, a man might make a large 

 cabinet of butterflies or shells, and yet know very little about the 

 animals whose outer covering he preserves, but he will not do very 

 much with diptera, or with mosses, or algse, without careful microscopic 

 study. To puzzle out for one's-self, by the help of a synopsis, the 

 name of an unfamiliar plant or animal is capital practice in the use of 

 terms, and an excellent means to show to us the value of a scientific 

 classification and nomenclature. Mr. J. S. Mill speaks of the advantage 

 which he derived fi-om a knowledge of botany, in teaching him to 

 form mental habits of accurate classification. On the great question, 

 MOW so keenly debated^ of the nature and origin of species, the 



