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sented in the most suitable form ; that shape, structure, number, 
weight, comparison, are the fundamental notions with which sciences 
of every kind have to deal ; and that scientific natural history is 
more properly that which takes cognizance of a creature’s size, form, 
bodily organs, and relations to other creatures, than that which con- 
cerns itself with the animal’s disposition and habits. 
I can fancy that I already hear some of my audience say, But 
why set up any antagonism between these two ways of studying a 
creature ? Both are necessary to its thorough comprehension, and 
our teit -books should contain information of both kinds ; we should 
be told how an animal is made, where it ought to be placed among 
others of the same group, and also how it lives, and what are its 
ways.” 
Precisely ; that is just what memoirs and text-hooks ought to do, 
but what too often they do not. We read much of the animal’s 
organs ; we see plates showing that its bristles have been counted, and 
its muscular fibres traced to the last thread ; we have the structure of 
its tissues analysed to their very elements ; we have long discussions 
on its title to rank with this group or that, and sometimes even disqui- 
sitions on the probable form and habits of some extremely remote, but 
quite hypothetical ancestor — some “ archi-rotator,” — to take an in- 
stance from my own subject — who is made to degrade in this way, or 
to advance in that, or who is credited with one organ, or deprived of 
another, just as the ever- varying necessities of a desperate hypothesis 
require ; but of the living creature itself, of the way it lives, of the 
craft with which it secures its prey or outwits its enemies, of the 
home that it constructs, of its charming confidence or its diabolical 
temper, of its curious courtship, its droll tricks, its games of play, its 
fun and spite, of its perplexing stupidity, coupled with actions of 
almost human sagacity, of all this — this, which is the real natural 
history of the animal, we too often hear little or nothing. And the 
reason is obvious, for in many cases the writer has no such informa- 
tion to give ; and even when he has, he is compelled by fashion to 
give so much space to that which is considered to be the more scien- 
tific portion of his subject, that he has scant room for the more 
interesting. Neither ought we to be surprised, if a writer is 
“ gravelled for the lack of matter ” when he comes to speak of an 
animal’s life ; for the study of the lives of a large majority is a difficult 
one. It requires not only abundant leisure, but superabundant 
patience, a residence favourably situated for the pursuit, and an equally 
favourable condition of things at home. The student, too, must be 
ready to adopt the inconvenient hours of the creatures that he watches, 
and be indi&rent to the criticisms of those that watch him. If his 
enthusiasm will not carry him, without concern, through dark nights, 
early mornings, vile weather, fatiguing distances, and caustic chaff, 
the root of the matter is not in him. Besides, he ought to have a 
natural aptitude for the pursuit, and know how to look for what he 
