POPULARITY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
299 
hindrances in the way, such obstacles, and such uncertainties, who can wonder 
that so few venture into the intricacies of Entomology, though more than ten 
thousand British insects have been named ? Doubtless, were aids to study more 
numerous and accessible, there would be a considerable increase of entomologists. 
Into every other department I need not enter, nor will space allow; all have 
not the same difficulties around them, and yet the zoologist may perceive, each in 
his own province, some bar or obstacle obstructing progress, which it would be no 
disadvantage to remove. The multiplication of new terms without explanation 
is a perpetual source of annoyance and disquietude in scientific works, which 
thus, instead of forwarding the student, keep him oscillating to and fro to no 
useful purpose. As an instance I may take Mr. T. B. Hall’s complaint in the 
present volume of The Naturalist (p. 88), where he says he is “ quite at a stand¬ 
still,” for want of a glossary to the terms employed in the two last volumes of 
Hooker’s British Flora. Mr. Lankester, at p. 177 of The Naturalist , in his paper 
on the “ Linnaean and Natural Arrangements of Plants,” admits, I perceive, that 
many of the books of Linnaean botanists “ are written in a pleasing style, and 
are calculated to allure to the study of Botany—then why object to them with 
this obvious utility about them, and the following ominous confession :—“ If 
there have been any deficiency of books on the natural system, it has been for 
the want of demand Just so. If works are written adapted only for the 
studious few, however learned the author, the demand must be limited. If the 
author, not satisfied with his own claims, captiously assails other systems that 
have enjoyed a deserved popularity, he must expect opposition, for those who 
have found the utility of their own course of study will hardly abandon it at a 
first summons, at the ijpse dixit of those who are interested in its suppression. 
There are two parties to be addressed by writers on Natural History; the first 
are professional students, or those whose leisure and resources enable them to 
dedicate their chief#time to their favourite subject; and the second are those 
whose pleasure is in the “ poetry of Natural History,” and whose intervals of 
relaxation from commerce or professional duty enable them only to glance with 
rapidity upon the condiments presented to their view. These are thus alluded 
to by Professor Henslow :—■“ All who feel an unaccountable delight in contem¬ 
plating the works of Nature, who admire the exquisite symmetry of crystals, 
plants, and animals; and who love to meditate upon the wonderful order and 
regularity with which they are distributed; [These] possess a source of continued 
enjoyment within themselves, which is capable of producing a most beneficial 
effect upon their temper and disposition, provided they do not abuse these 
advantages by making such studies too exclusively the objects of their thoughts 
and care.”* In advocating the claims of this numerous class, I am only con- 
* Principles of Descriptive and Physiological Botany, 12mo., p. 4. 
