ture and with matter; and shall not pretend--as
some would have it to do just now--to go out of its own sphere to
meddle with moral and spiritual matters. But, for practical
purposes, we may define the natural history of the causes which have
made it what it is, and filled it with the natural objects which it
holds. And if any one would know how to study the natural history
of any given spot as the history of the causes which have made it
what it is, and filled it with the natural objects which it holds.
And if any one would know how to study the natural history of a
place, and how to write it, let him read--and if he has read its
delightful pages in youth, read once again--that hitherto unrivalled
little monograph, White's "Natural History of Selborne;" and let him
then try, by the light of improved science, to do for any district
where he may be stationed, what White did for Selborne nearly one
hundred years ago. Let him study its plants, its animals, its soils
and rocks; and last, but not least, its scenery, as the total
outcome of what the soils, and plants, and animals, have made it. I
say, have made it. How far the nature of the soils, and the rocks
will affect the scenery of a district may be well learnt from a very
clever and interesting little book of Professor Geikie's, on "The
Scenery of Scotland as affected by its Geological Structure." How
far the plants, and trees affect not merely the general beauty, the
richness or barrenness of a country, but also its very shape; the
rate at which the hills are destroyed and washed into the lowland;
the rate at which the seaboard is being removed by the action of
waves--all these are branches of study which is becoming more and
more important.

And even in the study of animals and their effects on the
vegetation, questions of really deep interest will arise. You will
find that certain plants and trees cannot thrive in a district,
while others can, because the former are browsed down by cattle, or
their seeds eaten by birds, and the latter are not; that certain
seeds are carried in the coats of animals, or wafted abroad by
winds--others are not; certain trees destroyed wholesale by insects,
while others are not; that in a hundred ways the animal and
vegetable life of a district act and react upon each other, and that
the climate, the average temperature, the maximum and minimum
temperatures, the rainfall, act on them, and in the case of the
vegetation, are react