THE ROMANCE

OF

NATURAL HISTORY.

BY

PHILIP HENRY GOSSE, F.R.S.

LONDON:

JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.
M.DCCC.LX,

PREFACE.

THERE are more ways than one of studying natural history. There is Dr Dryasdust's way; which consists of mere accuracy of definition and differentiation; statistics as harsh and dry as the skins and bones in the museum where it is studied. There is the field-observer's way; the careful and conscientious accumulation and record of facts bearing on the life-history of the creatures; statistics as fresh and bright as the forest or meadow where they are gathered in the dewy morning. And there is the poet's way; who looks at nature through a glass peculiarly his own; the aesthetic aspect, which deals, not with statistics, but with the emotions of the human mind,-surprise, wonder, terror, revulsion, admiration, love, desire, and so forth,-which are made energetic by the contemplation of the creatures around him.

In my many years' wanderings through the wide field of natural history, I have always felt towards it something

of a poet's heart, though destitute of a poet's genius. As Wordsworth so beautifully says,

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

Now, this book is an attempt to present natural history in this æsthetic fashion. Not that I have presumed constantly to indicate-like the stage-directions in a play, or the "hear, hear!" in a speech-the actual emotion to be elicited; this would have been obtrusive and impertinent; but I have sought to paint a series of pictures, the reflections of scenes and aspects in nature, which in my own mind awaken poetic interest, leaving them to do their proper work.

If I may venture to point out one subject on which I have bestowed more than usual pains, and which I myself regard with more than common interest, it is that of the last chapter in this volume. An amount of evidence is adduced for the existence of the sub-mythic monster popularly known as "the sea-serpent," such as has never been brought together before, and such as ought almost to set doubt at rest. But the cloudy uncertainty which has invested the very being of this creature; its home on the lone ocean; the fitful way in which it is seen and lost in its vast solitudes; its dimensions, vaguely gigantic; its dragon-like form; and the possibility of its association with beings considered to be lost in an obsolete antiquity;