118 ON THE POPULARITY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
Yiolet-bed. But the same ploughman would not hesitate to express his surprize 
if he saw you near the nest of the Lark with any other intention than that of 
taking it; and the merchant would stare if referred from his ledger to study 
Lindley’s Natural System of Botany for the place of the Violet. 
It is within my own experience, and I doubt not of almost every practical 
naturalist , whatever branch he may especially favour, that the tables are quite 
turned as soon as you leave general assertions of the “beauty of Nature,” and 
perhaps interesting facts and anecdotes respecting plants and animals, to touch 
upon the scientific part of the subject. Not a mortal man exists with whom you 
can by possibility come in contact, but bores you with that eternal theme the 
state of the weather, its changes and its indications, nay, perhaps the oracular 
observation has been made that “ the glass has risen,” but attempt to discuss 
the various forms of cloud, and the minutiae of those phenomena on which the 
state of the weather depends, and you soon find all interest subside, and it too 
soon appears that Meteorology is considered a dry subject. If Zoology,'Ornithology, 
Entomology, or Botany, be tested in a similar way with reference to the general 
feeling on the subject, how few will be able to comprehend their details , or name 
scientifically the animal, bird, insect, or plant presented to their inspection. How 
superficial, then, must be this gold-leaf “ popularity” which the slightest rub 
effaces ; for if Natural History were really popular in the proper sense of the 
term, its study would be general, and its terms “ familiar as household words.” 
It becomes necessary then to submit the subject to careful analysis, that all 
incongruities may be removed, and that it may be clearly perceptible what 
portion of it really meets the general plaudit, and what rather appertains to the 
comparative few, and thus perhaps an intermediate path of utility may be 
descried. I shall therefore propose a division of 
I. Popular Natural History. 
II. Scientific Natural History. 
In discussing the first, I must premise that I mean it to include a description 
of, or reference to those objects of Nature which meet the universal eye, and of 
course must obviously more or less be within the observation of every one, in 
language which requires no glossary to unlock its meaning. I shall subdivide 
it into 
I. Descriptive. c . 
II. Symbolical. 
The description of natural objects in easy but correct language, familiar,’ yet 
not vulgar, must ever give delight to mankind in general, because it appeals to 
their best and happiest feelings, and as it refers to past pleasant things, so it 
points out a vista to what may occur again—it holds forth objects perhaps before 
only cursorily examined, and gives an impulse to their re-examination at the 
