LOCAL OCCURRENCES IN NATURAL HISTORY. 
50 
A similar meed of praise is awarded to 44 the intellectual author of that charm¬ 
ing volume the Journal of a Naturalist ” (by Mr. Knapp), which Mr. Swainson 
justly observes 44 should be in the hands of every lover of Nature, no less than on 
the shelf of every philosophic zoologist.”* One very great advantage of books 
of this class is, that they leave the prickly and repulsive armature of scientific 
verbiage behind them : and as even on the Holly-tree the apparently spinous 
foliage is only harsh on the exterior, so Natural History, exhibited in its varied 
details, as falling under the eye of common observation, claims the attention as 
well of the mere searcher for amusement as of the initiated professor who seeks 
for illustrations to his theoretical views. In this aspect, although a royal road to 
knowledge may not be laid down along the asperities of the way to the adytum 
of Nature, yet the doors of the ante-chapel are thrown open so wide as to invite 
all observers, and to increase in all probability the number of worshippers at her 
shrine. The numerous editions of White’s Selborne incontestably prove the 
general interest that local facts respecting the denizens of the fields, groves, and 
gardens inspire; and yet how very few persons have followed in the track here 
indicated, at least so as to bring their labours before the public, except perhaps in 
the way of catalogues in the periodicals, which, however useful in themselves, 
fail to produce that charm which arises from the development of facts, with the 
pleasing accompaniment of imagery and incident.t The catalogue is, of course, 
the basis of description, as the skeleton is of the body; but although the 
anatomist may require the one, and the historian or condenser the other, yet the 
general reader and inquirer prefers a connected chain of remark in the one case, 
and rather feels inclined to shrink from the 44 raw-head and bloody-bones” in the 
other. I conceive that the presentation of an allurement to the study of any 
science, is both a justifiable and a legitimate mode of procedure ; but at the same 
time I shall not assert that a walk in the fields, or a superficial glance at the 
Journal of a Naturalist , constitutes one at once, full-armed like Minerva from 
Jupiter’s brain; but surely, if a neophyte only has been enlisted in the cause, 
some advantage must be gained to science, if it only adds another contributor to 
the very inadequate remuneration the real scientific labourer receives for his 
expenditure of time and talent. 
It is my intention, therefore, in connection with these remarks, to trace a few 
* Swain son, 209. 
f No doubt the paucity of local details similar to White’s arises from the diffidence that many 
naturalists feel to publish seemingly trivial facts connected with their own neighbourhoods, lest it 
should be thought they have nothing else to do, or their friends should take the alarm that they 
are misemploying their time ! The fact positively is, that in the country an occupation uncon¬ 
nected with the pot or the spit is looked upon with amazement—a man may stump about with a 
gun or a rod and line for weeks in some estimation, let his luck be what it may—but, certes , he 
tumbles below zero at once if caught in a Duck-pond hooking out a Lemna or a Caltitriche. 
I 2 
