THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 7 
John White, who left England 5th March, 1787; and 
was Surgeon-General to the Settlement, 1788, is another in- 
teresting amateur naturalist of our very early history. His: 
experiences are given in “‘A Voyage to Botany Bay, 
1787-8-9.’"’ He was particularly interested in our birds, and 
his descriptions of them are full and the work of a keen ob- 
server, 
It would be impossible to refer to many well-known. 
names who were professional naturalists and. occupied their 
lives in collecting and naming our flora and fauna. 
Govett, the surveyor, gives in his journal some interest- 
ing sketches of birds, men, and animals, and records some: 
unusual incidents in his experience. The Leap at Blackheath: 
was discovered by him and named in honour of this interest- 
ing personality. 
Our history has been contemporaneous with much bitter 
strife, resulting in ultimate victory for the principles of varia- 
tion, heredity, and eyolution. These have been battle cries 
for fifty years. A great impetus to morphology and anatomy 
was given by Darwin’s ‘“‘Origin of Species,’’ and investigations 
by naturalists have been made more from the desire to ‘render: 
further aid to the proofs of these theories than from a.positive 
love of‘nature. But of these things men -are getting somewhat 
weary, and the love of nature for her own sake is strongly re- 
asserting itself. The study of Functions which Kreidl began» 
so far back as 1893, is receiving more and more the: attention 
it deserves, and the naturalist is becoming more. an observer: 
of the living form than the collector of dead specimens. 
There is a strong reaction amongst naturclists, 
especially in America and France against the vague- 
ness and inaccuracy of the so-called literary and 
anecdotal’ naturalist. The anthropomorphic tendency 
has been very misleading and unscientific. Professor: 
* Washburn deals with it in this way. Take the case of: the 
angry wasp. Anger in our consciousness is composed of, or as 
some prefer to say, is accompanied by sensations.of a quickened 
heart beat, altered’ breathing, a change in muscular tension,, 
and so on. But the circulation of the “‘blood’’ so-called (a sorti 
of refined Chyle) in the wasp 1s fundamentally different from! 
that’ of vertebrates.. The wasp, too, has no lungs, but breathes: 
through trachae, while its muscles are attached. internally, 
because its skeleton is everywhere external. What.then must 
anger: be like in a wasp’s consciousness, if it has one? If we 
are wise we shall sweep away our anthropomorphic language in 
reference to insects and animals and adopt another attitude, 
of mind towards the lives we observe. 
' Some of the more modern advanced papers. which have: 
been published will give an idea of the direction in which 
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