11
study of some branch of natural history for the first time.
Every one of our members who may possess any special
knowledge will, I am sure, gladly lay open the stores of his
information for the assistance of such beginners. Were I
asked how such studies ought to be commenced, I would un-
hesitatingly say—begin by making a collection. Fix upon
some group of animals or plants that may specially appeal to
your interest, and get together as many species as you can,
collecting them in all cases where possible with your own
hand, and noting their habits and localities in so doing. You
will thus get together a certain amount of raw materials
which will require further study in order to arrange them;
you are in the position of a child with a dissected puzzle,
and the problem before you is to arrange your collection
naturally—i.e., to bring together those forms that are akin
and to separate those which are not allied. In this way by
referring to standard works, or still better to living authorities,
the great principle of biological classification will gradually
dawn upon you, the organic forms by which you are sur-
rounded will become imbued with a new interest, you will be
born again into the kingdom of nature, and the lowliest plant
or the most minute insect that you had formerly passed un-
heeded by will no longer be in your eyes as unmeaning frag-
ments, but will become portions of a great system—parts
of that
" Stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul."
In order to grasp this principle of classification thoroughly
and scientifically, it is not sufficient to know that this or that
book catalogues the species in such or such order. You must
ask in every particular case why these species have been
grouped together and those separated from them. The system
of making a collection first and then arranging it from some
already classified cabinet is, I am persuaded, a most pernicious
one so far as the educational value of collecting natural
history specimens is concerned. It is those who have accu-
mulated row upon row of insects without any ultimate object
in view beyond the mere possession of specimens who have
made of "the mere collector" a "nayword and a common