292 
POPULARITY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
weavers of Lancashire and Norfolk, the glovers of Worcester, and the mechanics 
of Birmingham—not to mention numerous other localities—have been long noted 
for cultivating these predilections, and Crabbe, in his well-known “ Borough,” 
has made his “friend the Weaver,” familiar to every body. This circumstance, 
however, only entrenches me the firmer in my position that, while the objects 
embraced by Natural History command almost universal attention, their detailed 
anatomy, as materials for scientijic study y is scarcely at all attended to, few out 
of the thousands among artizans who have reared flowers for display, or collected 
insects for amusement or sale, having really benefited science or the world by 
any remarks upon the manners, habits, economy or arrangement of the tribes 
whose beauty or diversities of structure have commanded their attention. No 
doubt this arises on the one hand from the absence of competent guides, the 
deficiency or expense of books to consult, and on the other from the pursuit being- 
taken up merely as the amusement of the hour, with the same zest that others 
would seize upon the bowl or the quoit— 
“Whether the call-bird yield the hour’s delight, 
Or, magnified in microscope, the mite; 
Or whether tumblers, croppers, carriers seize 
The gentle mind, they rule it and they please.”— -Crabbe. 
But the disadvantage of engaging the acquaintance of Natural History on such a 
principle as this is (however praiseworthy in itself) that as it acts unfettered by 
the terms of science, so it is compelled to invent a vernacular dialect still more 
barbarous and absurd than the pedantic names often foisted upon objects, appar¬ 
ently with the charitable view of choaking the neophytes who may be compelled 
to pronounce the cabalistic words. And independently of the absurdity of 
imposing such names as “ Grim the Collier,” “ Lancashire hero,” &c., upon plants 
or their products, and finding “ Purple Emperors,” “ Queens of Spain,” “ Bed 
Admirals,” and Elephants, Tigers, Leopards, Magpies, &c., among insects, a 
feeling of rivalry often amounting to malignity is engendered between exhibitors 
and collectors, entirely marring all the delightful and amiable feelings one might 
have expected to arise from the contemplation of some of Nature’s fairest works, 
and leading to bitter disputes, heart-burning detraction, and deception and nar¬ 
row selfishness absolutely degrading. All this true science and correct feeling 
disclaims, but it is fully demonstrable therefrom that it is a very different thing 
to cultivate a few plants in pots, make an arrangement of pictured wings, or tap 
a tame Squirrel on the head, and from actual knowledge and study be competent 
to rank with the botanists, entomologists, and zoologists who have devoted their 
lives to the pursuit. It follows that the objects comprised in any study may 
charm superficial notice without the study itself being generally attended to, 
or at all philosophically considered—just as a set of clowns in an autumnal 
