There are those, lastly, who have neither time nor taste for the technicalities, and nice distinctions, of formal Natural History; who enjoy Nature, but as artists or as sportsmen, and not as men of science.  Let them follow their bent freely:  but let them not suppose that in following it they can do nothing towards enlarging our knowledge of Nature, especially when on foreign stations.  So far from it, drawings ought always to be valuable, whether of plants, animals, or scenery, provided only they are accurate; and the more spirited and full of genius they are, the more accurate they are certain to be; for Nature being alive, a lifeless copy of her is necessarily an untrue copy.  Most thankful to any officer for a mere sight of sketches will be the closet botanist, who, to his own sorrow, knows three-fourths of his plants only from dried specimens; or the closet zoologist, who knows his animals from skins and bones.  And if anyone answers—­But I cannot draw.  I rejoin, You can at least photograph.  If a young officer, going out to foreign parts, and knowing nothing at all about physical science, did me the honour to ask me what he could do for science, I should tell him—­Learn to photograph; take photographs of every strange bit of rock-formation which strikes your fancy, and of every widely extended view which may give a notion of the general lie of the country.  Append, if you can, a note or two, saying whether a plain is rich or barren; whether the rock is sandstone, limestone, granitic, metamorphic, or volcanic lava; and if there be more rocks than one, which of them lies on the other; and send them to be exhibited at a meeting of the Geological Society.  I doubt not that the learned gentlemen there will find in your photographs a valuable hint or two, for which they will be much obliged.  I learnt, for instance, what seemed to me most valuable geological lessons, from mere glances at drawings—­I believe from photographs—­of the Abyssinian ranges about Magdala.

Or again, let a man, if he knows nothing of botany, not trouble himself with collecting and drying specimens; let him simply photograph every strange and new tree or plant he sees, to give a general notion of its species, its look; let him append, where he can, a photograph of its leafage, flower, fruit; and send them to Dr. Hooker, or any distinguished botanist:  and he will find that, though he may know nothing of botany, he will have pretty certainly increased the knowledge of those who do know.

The sportsman, again—­I mean the sportsman of that type which seems peculiar to these islands, who loves toil and danger for their own sakes; he surely is a naturalist, ipso facto, though he knows it not.  He has those very habits of keen observation on which all sound knowledge of nature is based; and he, if he will—­as he may do without interfering with his sport—­can study the habits of the animals among whom he spends wholesome and exciting days.  You have only to look over such good old