242 
INSULARITY. 
And I have learnt to take an interest in so few things in this 
world (and those, we might add, such essentially artificial 
things) that I must go on to the end of the chapter in the 
selfsame groove in which I have hitherto been moving.” 
And so he stays out his allotted time, scorns the “ niggers” 
by whom he is surrounded, cares nothing for, and learns very 
little of, the country in which he is domiciled, except, to take 
an example, the current value of the rupee, and the mad 
delight of pig-sticking, and comes back with a liver and an 
income large enough to enable him to go on leading the rest 
of his natural life on the same lines at home, and knowing 
far less of the natural features of the country than we might 
know ourselves without ever leaving England. 
But are not we, “who live at home at ease,” as the saying 
is, partly to blame for this state of things ? Ought we not, 
when we send a son from our homes to the other side of the 
world, to have taken care beforehand that he should not be 
forced, in the absence of congenial and well-bred English 
society, to take his only delight in pleasures of the senses ? 
Is it not partly our fault if he come back to England very 
much as he went out, a “ returned empty.” I think we owe 
it to those over whom we have influence—knowing from our 
own experience the civilising and tranquilising influence of the 
particular tastes we ourselves affect—to do our best, as a 
personal duty, to see that they shall not incur the danger 
(and it is a great danger) of being thrown upon their resources 
in a foreign land, without being able to reckon amongst those 
resources at least one wholesome and intellectual pursuit— 
especially as public opinion in these days has been graciously 
pleased to smile more upon scientific pursuits, instead of 
stigmatising their possessor as a “bug-hunter,” or a “feller 
who is cracked about birds’ eggs.” How many English officers 
abroad would have found a taste for natural history—if they 
had only had it—a perfect godsend to them, and a satisfying 
of a want which billiards, and polo, and “pegs,” and parades 
do not adequately fill ! 
And apart from this philanthropic view of the case, it is 
impossible to calculate the value to science of the labours 
even of the mere collector, in the shape of duly authenticated 
and localised specimens. And more than this, how many 
more opportunities might we ourselves, who, from the force 
of circumstances, are unable to pursue our studies in any 
distant part of the world, have made for ourselves for doing 
a little original work, if we had utilised our friends abroad 
more—if we had inspired them with the taste, and extracted 
from them a promise to look out for birds, or plants, or 
