orests of
Guiana. With all these points of difference, the two naturalists were
men of the same kind, and whose lives both teach the same lesson. They
are examples to show that if a man will but look carefully round him in
the country his every-day walk may supply him with an enjoyment costing
nothing, but surpassed by none which wealth can procure; with food for
reflection however long he may live; with problems of which it will be an
endless pleasure to attempt the solution; with a spectacle of Infinite
Wisdom which will fill his mind with awe and with a constantly increasing
assurance of Infinite Goodness, which will do much to help him in all the
trials of life. He who lives in the country and has the love of outdoor
natural history in his heart, will never be lonely and never dull.
Waterton himself thought that this love of natural history must be inborn
and could not be acquired. If this be so, they ought indeed to be
thankful who possess so happy a gift. Even if Waterton's opinion be not
absolutely true, it is at least certain that the taste for outdoor
observation can only be acquired in the field, and that this acquisition
is rarely made after the period of boyhood. How important, then, to
excite the attention of children in the country to the sights around
them. A few will remain apathetic, the tastes of some will lie in other
directions, but the time will not be lost, for some will certainly take
to natural history, and will have happiness from it throughout life. No
study is more likely to confirm them in that content of which a favourite
poet of Waterton's truly says:--

"Content is wealth, the riches of the mind,
And happy he who can that treasure find."

Gilbert White and Charles Waterton are pre-eminent among English
naturalists for their complete devotion to the study; both excelled as
observers, and the writings of both combine the interest of exact outdoor
observation with the charm of good literature. Waterton was born on June
3rd, 1782, at Walton Hall, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, a place which
had for several centuries been the seat of his family. His father,
Thomas Waterton, was a squire, fond of fox-hunting, but with other
tastes, well read in literature, and delighting in the observation of the
ways of birds and beasts. His grandfather, whose grave is beneath the
most northern of a row of old elm trees in the park, was imprisoned in
York on account of his known attachment