The boy Jones, in one of his visits to the Palace, to avoid detection, secreted himself up the kitchen chimney. The intense heat necessary for the preparation of a large dish of white-bait for her Majesty’s dinner compelled him to relax his hold, and in an instant he was precipitated among the Blackwall delicacies. The indignant cook immediately demanded “his business there.” “Don’t you see,” observed the younker, “I’m
ONE OF THE FRY?”
PUNCH’S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE.
NO. 4.
NATURAL HISTORY.
Definition.—The history of “naturals”—which chiefly include the human species—and of “simples” (herbs), occupies the branch of science we are about to enlighten our readers upon. It treats, in fact, of animated nature; while physical history—instead of being the history of Apothecaries’ Hall, as many suppose—deals exclusively with inanimate matter.
Of genus, species, and orders.—If, in the vegetable world, we commence with the buttercup, and trace all the various kinds and sizes of plants that exist, up to the pine (Norwegian), and down again to the hautboy (Cormack’s Princesses); if, among the lower animals, we begin with a gnat and go up to an elephant, or select from the human species a Lord John Russell, and place him beside a professor Whewell, we shall see that nature provides an endless variety of all sorts of everything. Now, to render a knowledge of everything in natural history as difficult of acquirement as possible to everybody, the scientific world divides nature into the above-mentioned classes, to which Latin names are given. For instance, it would be vulgarly ridiculous to call a “cat” by its right name; and when one says “cat,” a dogmatic naturalist is justified in thinking one means a lion or tiger, both these belonging to the category of “cats;” hence, a “cat” is denominated, for shortness, felis Ægyptiacus; an ass is turned into a horse, by being an equus; a woman into a man, for with him she is equally homo.