PLAN OF STUDY. 



" That the principal aim of a Naturalist ought to be to multiply 

 observations," is laid down as a leading rule by M. Levaillant, 

 one of the very few who have preferred reading the page of Nature 

 in the woods and fields, to the inferior study of cabinets and 

 books ; and hence he was stigmatized, as another enthusiastic and 

 genuine observer, Audubon, is at present, by cabinet naturalists, 

 as a romancer unworthy of credit. " Theories," adds M. Le- 

 vaillant, "are more easy and more brilliant than observations; but 

 it is by observation alone that science can be enriched, while a 

 single fact is frequently sufficient to demolish a system." # To 

 all this I most cordially subscribe ; while I recommend whoever 

 feels little interest in field study, to read the works of Audubon, 

 Knapp, Levaillant, Ray, Reaumur, Wilson, and White, from 

 whom if he catch no portion of the ardour which inspired them 

 in their beautiful researches, he may conclude that he is too cold 

 and too callous ever to become a Naturalist. 



The young Naturalist indeed will find it not only more easy 

 and delightful, but greatly more improving, to take his first les- 

 sons in the fields, by observing the animated scene which creation 

 everywhere displays, when 



Spring 



Comes forth her work of gladness to contrive 

 With all her reckless birds upon the wing, f 



than to sit down to study the descriptions given in books, or 



* Histoire Naturelle des Paroquets, i. 20. One of the few valuable works on 

 Natural History, which I found in the Library of the Paris Museum, that is 

 not in our Library of the British Museum ; both, I am sorry to say, being 

 equally deficient in this department. 



f Childe Harold, Canto iii. 30. 



