For general Zoology the best books for beginners are, perhaps, as a general introduction, the Rev. J. A. L. Wood’s “Popular Zoology,” full of excellent plates; and for systematic Zoology, Mr. Gosse’s four little books, on Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes, published with many plates, by the Christian Knowledge Society, at a marvellously cheap rate. For miscroscopic animalcules, Miss Agnes Catlow’s “Drops of Water” will teach the young more than they will ever remember, and serve as a good introduction to those teeming abysses of the unseen world, which must be afterwards traversed under the guidance of Hassall and Ehrenberg.
For Ornithology, there is no book, after all, like dear old Bewick, passé though he may be in a scientific point of view. There is a good little British ornithology, too, published in Sir W. Jardine’s “Naturalist’s Library,” and another by Mr. Gosse. And Mr. Knox’s “Ornithological Rambles in Sussex,” with Mr. St. John’s “Highland Sports,” and “Tour in Sutherlandshire,” are the monographs of naturalists, gentlemen, and sportsmen, which remind one at every page (and what higher praise can one give?) of White’s “History of Selborne.” These last, with Mr. Gosse’s “Canadian Naturalist,” and his little book “The Ocean,” not forgetting Darwin’s delightful “Voyage of the Beagle and Adventure,” ought to be in the hands of every lad who is likely to travel to our colonies.
For general Geology, Professor Ansted’s Introduction is excellent; while, as a specimen of the way in which a single district may be thoroughly worked out, and the universal method of induction learnt from a narrow field of objects, what book can, or perhaps ever will, compare with Mr. Hugh Miller’s “Old Red Sandstone”?
For this last reason, I especially recommend to the young the Rev. C. A. Johns’s “Week at the Lizard,” as teaching a young person how much there is to be seen and known within a few square miles of these British Isles. But, indeed, all Mr. Johns’s books are good (as they are bound to be, considering his most accurate and varied knowledge), especially his “Flowers of the Field,” the best cheap introduction to systematic botany which has yet appeared. Trained, and all but self-trained, like Mr. Hugh Miller, in a remote and narrow field of observation, Mr. Johns has developed himself into one of our most acute and persevering botanists, and has added many a new treasure to the Flora of these isles; and one person, at least, owes him a deep debt of gratitude for first lessons in scientific accuracy and patience,—lessons taught, not dully and dryly at the book and desk, but livingly and genially, in adventurous rambles over the bleak cliffs and ferny woods of the wild Atlantic shore,—
“Where the old fable of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold.”
Mr. Henfrey’s “Rudiments of Botany” might accompany Mr. Johns’s books. Mr. Babington’s “Manual of British Botany” is also most compact and highly finished, and seems the best work which I know of from which a student somewhat advanced in English botany can verify species; while for ferns, Moore’s “Handbook” is probably the best for beginners.
For Entomology, which, after all, is the study most fit for boys (as Botany is for girls) who have no opportunity for visiting the sea-shore, Catlow’s “Popular British Entomology,” having coloured plates (a delight to young people), and saying something of all the orders, is, probably, still a good work for beginners.
Mr. Stainton’s “Entomologist’s Annual for 1855” contains valuable hints of that gentleman’s on taking and arranging moths and butterflies; as well as of Mr. Wollaston’s on performing the same kind office for that far more numerous, and not less beautiful class, the beetles. There is also an admirable “Manual of British Butterflies and Moths,” by Mr. Stainton, in course of publication; but, perhaps, the most interesting of all entomological books which I have seen (and for introducing me to which I must express my hearty thanks to Mr. Stainton), is “Practical Hints respecting Moths and Butterflies, forming a Calendar of Entomological Operations,” [220] by Richard Shield, a simple London working-man.
I would gladly devote more space than I can here spare to a review of this little book, so perfectly does it corroborate every word which I have said already as to the moral and intellectual value of such studies. Richard Shield, making himself a first-rate “lepidopterist,” while working with his hands for a pound a week, is the antitype of Mr. Peach, the coast-guardsman, among his Cornish tide-rocks. But more than this, there is about Shield’s book a tone as of Izaak Walton himself, which is very delightful; tender, poetical, and religious, yet full of quiet quaintness and humour; showing in every page how the love for Natural History is in him only one expression of a love for all things beautiful, and pure, and right. If any readers of these pages fancy that I over-praise the book, let them buy it, and judge for themselves. They will thus help the good man toward pursuing his studies with larger and better appliances, and will be (as I expect) surprised to find how much there is to be seen and done, even by a working-man, within a day’s walk of smoky Babylon itself; and how easily a man might, if he would, wash his soul clean for a while from all the turmoil and intrigue, the vanity and vexation of spirit of that “too-populous wilderness,” by going out to be alone a while with God in heaven, and with that earth which He has given to the children of men, not merely for the material wants of their bodies, but as a witness and a sacrament that in Him they live and move, and have their being, “not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Thus I wrote some twenty years ago, when the study of Natural History was confined mainly to several scientific men, or mere collectors of shells, insects, and dried plants.