It must of course be recognized that in many cases the observation of nature is not practiced for the pure pleasure of it, but serves some ulterior object or interest. There is first the obvious practical gain from such observation. Agriculture has undergone a complete revolution in the last hundred years, and this revolution has been brought about by the various developments of scientific research. Darwin’s vast investigations showed the intimate connection between the theories of the scientist and the practical experiments of the breeder. On the other side there is the observation of the artist. Ruskin pointed out long ago, how fine, how subtle, how delicate was the vision of the great painters, how perfect their skill in rendering the exact sense impression of natural objects. In the same way, it is not often considered what wealth of accurate record we have in the poets and novelists. Gautier, for whom the visible world existed, was a poet. He saw shapes and contours and colors, saw them to render them in words that interpreted as perfectly as words can. The great French novelists who followed Gautier and learned from him were in the same way admirable observers and recorders. Darwin himself did not scorn to use the observation of the English novelist Mrs. Oliphant and he refers to her as ‘an excellent observer.’[5] But there is such a thing as observation for the pure love of it, which is used neither to improve the breed of chickens or tomatoes, nor to make effective and salable copy, nor even to generate and sustain theories about the organization of the cosmos. There is a pure, inexhaustible delight in just living with the insects and the birds, in merging one’s own existence, one’s own soul in the mysterious abundance and ecstasy of the universal life, without thought of any ulterior object to be achieved in any way whatsoever. White of Selborne felt nature in this fashion. So did Richard Jefferies. So did the French naturalist and observer, Fabre. I know few works that have more of the charm of personal delight than Bates’s ‘Naturalist on the Amazons,’ a book which I have read and re-read and shall read again. Bates was interested in the Darwinian theories and worked at them. But his passion for the forest life was quite independent of any theories and it is expressed with an engaging, absolute simplicity, without the slightest pretence at literary ornament or effect.