INTRODUCTION. A genuine naturalist, whose chief pleasure is concentrated in the investigation of the phenomena of the Creation, and in admiring the exquisite skill which he cannot fail to discover in the wise contrivances of Providence, wherever he turns his eye on "the heaven above, or the earth beneath"-need never complain of dull weather, or a bad day, since, in the dreariest day, or the most cold and comfortless weather, he may always find some subject of interesting research; for even if he cannot find the gay flowers, or the restless insects of spring and summer, he may trace these to their winter quarters; or he may observe the effects of the weather on the disintegration of rocks, and the formation or amelioration of soils; or investigate the laws which regulate the ever varying changes of the sky, Welcome then "old January, wrapped well in many weeds to keep the cold away;" welcome frost and clear weather; and thrice welcome the bracing exercise in the bright cold sunshine by day, and the blazing hearth, and the well stored library at night. With all these " appliances," we think it will go hard with us if we cannot, as old Ben Jonson says, With some delight the day outwear, α We think it right to inform our readers, that in the little sketches of Natural History which we shall now introduce under the successive months, we deem it an improvement on our previous plan, to drop the form of continuous narrative, and present them with detached subjects, more in the way of studies, than as pictures, which our space is too confined to admit of being finished to our liking. We hope, that in this way, we shall be able to throw more interest into this department; both from our studies in the fields, and from our occasional reading when confined by rain or rheumatism in doors than we could otherwise accomplish; while at the same time we shall, perhaps, better sustain the leading character which our little work has borne since its commencement of popularizing Natural History. We may boldly say, indeed, that while this delightful study had been rendered unfashionable by the dry, tasteless productions of the Linnæan school-now happily fast sinking into oblivion, we were almost solitary in following the more interesting and philosophical path of our own great Naturalists Ray, Lister, Derham, White of Selborne, and Colonel Montagu. - For similar reasons to those which induced us to avoid the bad taste, and worse philosophy of the Linnæan school, we shall take care not to bewilder our readers with the wild fancies of what we may call the Hypothetical school of Naturalists, whose disciples are at present so eager to gain proselytes. The ostensible object of this school is to discover a chimera, which they call the Natural System, but instead of a Natural System, the pursuit has been hitherto productive of little besides absurd and unphilosophical speculation, both in Britain and on the Continent. One of the most celebrated of these speculators for example, (M. Savigny), gravely tells us, that the sucker of a gnat, or of a butterfly, is not a sucker at all, but two pairs of imperfect jaws which Nature has glued together, and thereby rendered them" totally useless," as jaws.* He might as well have said, that a metal syringe is not a syringe at all, but a pair of pincers soldered together, and totally useless as pincers!! Another leading man in this school (M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire) tells us, that what we ignorantly call the legs of a crab, are not legs at all, but the ribs which have developed themselves [when? may we ask] out of the body, as has the back-bone (vertebra) which has now become a shell. On the same absurd principle, we might say with as much reason, that our ribs are not ribs at all, but feet which have ensconced themselves under our skin, as has our back-bone from being formerly a shell, developed itself inwards, and become a bone!!! Another still more fanciful speculator (Mr. Mac Leay) proceeds apparently on the old Grecian idea, that a circle is the most perfect of figures, and having set his mind agog upon this fancy, he sees circles where nobody else can see them. For example, all plants and animals he looks upon as disposed in circles of fives-bees,butterflies, and beetles, as well as oysters and clovegillyflowers, being each as regularly placed in their respective quinary circle, 66 Cycle, and epicycle, multiform and mixed," as the brass circles of an armillary sphere, or the rings of a Chinese juggler. † • Mem. Anim. sans Vertebres, Pt. I. See also Swainson in Loudon's Encyc. of Agricul. 2d Ed. p. 1113. + See Introd. to Montagu's Ornith. Dict. 2d Edit. passim. 7 What Herschel has so well said of the Greek philosophers, who spent their time in similar fancies, applies most pointedly, we think, to our modern speculators. "We are struck," he says, "with their loose and careless consideration of external nature, their grossly illogical deductions of principles of sweeping generality from few, and ill-observed facts, in some cases; and their reckless assumption of abstract principles having no foundation, but in their own imaginations, in others; mere forms of words, with nothing corresponding to them in nature, from which, as from mathematical definitions, postulates, and axioms, they imagined that all phenomena could be derived, and all the laws of nature deduced."* It is indeed, deeply to be deplored, that while the Baconian induction has been productive of such splendid results in Astronomy, Chemistry, and Natural Philosphy, we should, in Natural History, retrograde to the hypothetical nonsense of the Grecian schools; and that too, just at the favourable moment when the world has become sick of the meagre and inaccurate Linnæan catalogues. We trust, that in the following sketches, the reader will meet with few traces of any of these schools, and if he does not find deep philosophy, he may seldom be disappointed in meeting with instructive amusement. Lardners's Cyclop. Study of Nat. Phil. p. 105. |