300 Natural-Historical Collections. 
the importance of granite and greywacke, and elevated by the mighty conceptions 
of cataclysms and catastrophes, fancies that no science is like his science. The 
mineralogist, or oryctognost, as he pedantically calls himself, thinks that he only 
is in the path of science, and that the forms of molecules and crystals constitute all 
that is worth knowing, or all that can be truly known of the solid constituents of 
the globe. The meteorologist is in the clouds, or higher, and looks down with 
contempt upon the grovellers upon earth. The botanist, with his tin box under 
his arm, and his head stored with Latin names and terms, wanders, delighted, 
among the frail but beautiful forms of vegetative nature, and thinks that of all 
pursuits, his is that which is the most innocent, the most healthful, the most in- 
vigorating to soul and body. The zoologist, with his gun, joyously strides over 
mountain and moor, penetrates the dark recesses of the forest, and picks his wary 
steps among the marshes, and thinks the while that the mineralogist may clink 
away at his phonolite, the botanist may cull his sweet primroses, the meteorolo- 
gist expatiate among bis vapours, or lose himself in a bog in chase of a will-o’-the- 
wisp ; but as for him, the conversion of life into death is that only in which he 
can take delight. Every one of these worthies looks with more or less contempt 
on the other. The botanists are generally more despised by other naturalists than 
the cultivators of any other department, excepting the insect-men. And even 
among the botanists, the cryptogamists, meet with little sympathy from their 
brethren. Of the botanists we have this much to say, that they are generally 
more social, more communicating, and more amiable, than the mineralogists or 
zoologists. There is something in the study of botany so inconsistent with tur- 
bulence, pride, or selfishness, that we generally find its most enthusiastic ad- 
mirers to be persons of a happy temperament. Nevertheless, this science has its 
pettish and cankered devotees. When shall we see science pursued for its own 
sake ? when will men cease to scrape to themselves little heaps of eulogies and 
flatteries raked out of the sloth of worldly interest ? when human reason shall be 
more powerful than human passion. Show me the man who perverts the holy 
passion of examining the works of God, to the base purpose of gaining the ap- 
plause of his fellow men, who professes to admire nature, but who aims at get- 
ting himself to be admired; who in his phrases seems all wrapt in absorbing 
zeal for the interest of science, but who in his secret actions evinces a mind bent 
solely upon his own aggrandizement. That man is an object of contempt and 
abhorrence, be his talents what they may. We have seen men of this character, 
and they were unhappy men. We have seen men of another character, who de- 
voted themselves to the cultivation of science in plain simpleness of heart, and 
they were happy men.—Ed. Lit. Gaz. 
The Black Swan, (Cygnus atratus. )—When the classical writers of antiquity 
spoke of the black swan as a proverbial rarity, so improbable as almost to be 
deemed impossible, little did they imagine that in these latter days a region 
would be discovered, nearly equal in extent to the Roman empire even at the 
proudest period of its greatness, in which their ‘ rara avis” would be found in as 
great abundance as the common wild swan upon the lakes of Europe. Such,” 
however, has been one of the least singular among the many strange and unex- 
pected results of the discovery of the great southern continent of New Holland. 
Scarcely a traveller who has visited its shores omits to mention this remarkable 
bird. An early notice of its transmission to Europe occurs in a letter from Wit- 
sen to Dr. Martin Lister, printed in the twentieth volume of the Philosophical 
Transactions ; and Valentyn published in 1726 an account of two living speci- 
mens brought to Batavia. Cook, Vancouver, Phillip, and White, mention it 
incidentally in their voyages; and Labillardiére, in his Narrative of the Expedi- 
tion of D’Entrecasteaux in search of La Pérouse, has given a more particular 
description, together with a tolerable figure. Another figure, of no great value, 
has also been given by Dr. Shaw in his Zoological Miscellany. 
Since this period many living individuals have been brought to England, 
where they thrive equally well with the Emeus, the Kanguroos, and other Au- 
