POPULARITY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
297 
Fix’d in the centre of a prickly brake, 
That the thorns wound her not, they only guard. 
Powers not unjustly liken’d to those gifts 
Of happy instinct, which the woodland bird 
Shares with her species, Nature’s grace sometimes 
Upon the individual doth confer, 
Among her higher creatures born and trained 
To use of reason.--- 
* * * * * 
Blest with a kindly faculty to blunt 
The edge of adverse circumstance, and turn 
Into their contraries the petty plagues 
And hindrances with which they stand beset.” Wordsworth. 
I have now shown, in its various phases, that reference to the objects of Nature 
which is acceptable * to all persons of common reading and education; and as it 
makes no pretence to any thing that may not from observation be accessible to 
any one, so it is, correctly speaking, popular. I have next shortly to consider 
Natural History when assuming a scientific form. 
Scientific Natural History comprehends the classification of the whole of 
animate and inanimate Nature, and the necessary attendant terminology. Hence 
of course, the student, if he intends to become a practised naturalist, has an 
ordeal of study to pass through which no ingenuity or tact of observation can 
enable him to dispense with. I must here refer to the very appropriate and 
valuable observations of Mr. Swainson, in Part iv. of his Geography and Classi¬ 
fication of Animals , in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia , which every young naturalist 
would do well to reflect upon. 
But the tenour of my discourse has little reference to the regular student, 
who, consigned to the hands of the professor, will doubtless in due time possess 
acquirements to observe and classify for himself, or at least to choose out of the 
numerous systems that demand his attention. I am anxious to consider the 
interests of those who are not professionally devoted to the study of Nature; but 
who, as amateurs or collectors, wish to enjoy the charms of their favourite 
pursuit as much as possible. These form a considerable class, and as they are 
the readers and purchasers of works on Natural History, every effort should be 
made to increase their numbers, and supply their wants. Many persons have 
but a limited time that they can devote to, the pursuit they love; they naturally 
wish to give the greatest part of this time to the woods and fields, and when they 
attempt to study their acquisitions in detail, and to obtain a scientific name for 
them, they too often find the systematist has prepared such a puzzle for them, 
that they abandon the attempt in despair, and feel inclined to indulge the idea 
that “ ponderous tomes of cramp technicalities” deserve no attention. 
At the present moment excessive analysis has so cut up every department of 
