Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the ShoreKingsley, Charles
History
Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore
Kingsley, Charles
Natural history -- Juvenile literature; Seashore biology -- Juvenile literature
For this last reason, I especially recommend to the young the Rev. C. A.
Johns’s “Week at the Lizard,” as teaching a young person how much there
is to be seen and known within a few square miles of these British Isles.
But, indeed, all Mr. Johns’s books are good (as they are bound to be,
considering his most accurate and varied knowledge), especially his
“Flowers of the Field,” the best cheap introduction to systematic botany
which has yet appeared. Trained, and all but self-trained, like Mr. Hugh
Miller, in a remote and narrow field of observation, Mr. Johns has
developed himself into one of our most acute and persevering botanists,
and has added many a new treasure to the Flora of these isles; and one
person, at least, owes him a deep debt of gratitude for first lessons in
scientific accuracy and patience,—lessons taught, not dully and dryly at
the book and desk, but livingly and genially, in adventurous rambles over
the bleak cliffs and ferny woods of the wild Atlantic shore,—
“Where the old fable of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold.”
Mr. Henfrey’s “Rudiments of Botany” might accompany Mr. Johns’s books.
Mr. Babington’s “Manual of British Botany” is also most compact and
highly finished, and seems the best work which I know of from which a
student somewhat advanced in English botany can verify species; while for
ferns, Moore’s “Handbook” is probably the best for beginners.
For Entomology, which, after all, is the study most fit for boys (as
Botany is for girls) who have no opportunity for visiting the sea-shore,
Catlow’s “Popular British Entomology,” having coloured plates (a delight
to young people), and saying something of all the orders, is, probably,
still a good work for beginners.
Mr. Stainton’s “Entomologist’s Annual for 1855” contains valuable hints
of that gentleman’s on taking and arranging moths and butterflies; as
well as of Mr. Wollaston’s on performing the same kind office for that
far more numerous, and not less beautiful class, the beetles. There is
also an admirable “Manual of British Butterflies and Moths,” by Mr.
Stainton, in course of publication; but, perhaps, the most interesting of
all entomological books which I have seen (and for introducing me to
which I must express my hearty thanks to Mr. Stainton), is “Practical
Hints respecting Moths and Butterflies, forming a Calendar of
Entomological Operations,” {220} by Richard Shield, a simple London
working-man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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