There is, perhaps, no situation in which the lover of nature and the observer of animal life may not find opportunities for increasing his store of facts. It is told of a state prisoner, under a cruel and rigorous despotism, that when he was excluded from all commerce with mankind, and was shut out from books, he took an interest and found consolation in the visits of a spider; and there is no improbability in the story. The operations of that persecuted creature are among the most extraordinary exhibitions of mechanical ingenuity; and a daily watching of the workings of its instinct would beget admiration in a rightly-constituted mind. The poor prisoner had abundant leisure for the speculations in which the spider's web would enchain his understanding. We have all of us, at one period or other of our lives, been struck with some singular evidence of contrivance in the economy of insects, which we have seen with our own eyes. Want of leisure, and probably want of knowledge, have prevented us from following up the curiosity which for a moment was excited. And yet some such accident has made men naturalists, in the highest meaning of the term. Bonnet, evidently speaking of himself, says, "I knew a naturalist, who, when he was seventeen years of age, having heard of the operations of the ant-lion, began by doubting them. He had no rest till he had examined into them: and he verified them, he admired them, he discovered new facts, and soon became the disciple and the friend of the Pliny of France"[B] (Réaumur). It is not the happy fortune of many to be able to devote themselves exclusively to the study of nature, unquestionably the most fascinating of human employments; but almost every one may acquire sufficient knowledge to be able to derive a high gratification from beholding the more common operations of animal life. His materials for contemplation are always before him. Some weeks ago we made an excursion to West Wood, near Shooter's Hill, expressly for the purpose of observing the insects we might meet with in the wood: but we had not got far among the bushes, when heavy rain came on. We immediately sought shelter among the boughs of some thick underwood, composed of oak, birch, and aspen; but we could not meet with a single insect, not even a gnat or a fly, sheltered under the leaves. Upon looking more narrowly, however, into the bushes which protected us, we soon found a variety of interesting objects of study. The oak abounded in galls, several of them quite new to us; while the leaves of the birch and the aspen exhibited the curious serpentine paths of the minute mining caterpillars. When we had exhausted the narrow field of observation immediately around us, we found that we could considerably extend it, by breaking a few of the taller branches near us, and then examining their leaves at leisure. In this manner two hours glided quickly and pleasantly away, by which time the rain had nearly ceased; and though