Diversions of a Naturalist

WHEN winter grips our land it is fitting to discourse about the sweet and refreshing pine trees which are especially associated in northern climes with the celebration of Christ...

THE fact that five years ago Mr. Otto Beit, the brother of the late Mr. Alfred Beit, not only carried out the latter's intention of giving £50,000 to the promotion of research i...

THE divining-rod, spoken of by the Romans as "virgula divina," and mentioned by Cicero and by Tacitus, was a different thing altogether from the modern forked twig of the water-...

JUST as man's brain is enormously larger than that of the ordinary monkeys, although his general make and anatomy is closely similar to theirs, so we find that the rhinoceros ha...

UNTIL the discovery of the wonderful fossil jaw in the gravel of Piltdown, near Lewes in Sussex, a favourite view as to the probable relationship of man and existing apes was, t...

THE curious belief, widely spread in former ages--that the creatures (described in the last chapter) called "barnacles" or "ship's barnacles"--often found attached in groups to...

APART from the familiar instances of male colour-decoration afforded by birds, we find that even some of the minute water-fleas inhabiting freshwater lakes and the sea, and know...

MOST people are familiar with the fact that fasting in the Christian Church has from early times been of two degrees--one in which no flesh of beast or bird or fish, not even eg...

IT is clear that there was a widespread tradition known to the learned in the early centuries of the Christian era, according to which there existed in some distant Eastern land...

AFTER the hot summer of 1911 I escaped from London in September and made straight for Interlaken. Thence I was "wafted" by the electric railway to the "Schynige Platte"--a wonde...

IT is becoming more and more certain that the character and quality of the actual things--the natural products--which we use as food and accept as "diet" are far more important...

ONE of the new features of modern life--the result of the enormous development of the newspaper press and the vast increase in numbers of those who read and think in common--is...

IN early September, golf links and other such grasslands swarm with a large gnat-like fly of reddish-brown body, feeble flight, and long, straggling legs. These flies are genera...

IN order to understand and interpret correctly the operation of natural selection in producing new species and maintaining them, by "the preservation of favoured races in the st...

A VERY beautiful kind of sea-anemone (common at Felixstowe) is the Daisy or Sagartia troglodytes, (Fig. 6, a), which has a very long body attached to a rock or stone far below t...

THE gradual passage of the race of man from the condition of "beasts that reason not" to that of "persons of understanding and reason" has been an immensely long and a very pain...

ANY hard coat or covering enclosing a softer material is called a "shell"--thus we speak of an egg-shell, a nut-shell, a bomb-shell, and the shell of a lobster. But there is a s...

IT is always pleasing to find that intelligent care can be brought to bear on the preservation of the rare and interesting animals which still inhabit parts of these British Isl...

THERE is at the present day in this country a real and most happy revival of interest in the great art of dancing as exhibited on the stage. We owe this to the creative ability...

I ONCE went down to Aldeburgh, on the Suffolk coast, with a party of friends, which included an American writer, himself as delightful and charming as his stories. Why should I...

WE have no word in English to indicate the varied crab-and-shrimp-like creatures of salt and fresh waters in the same way as "insect" designates the six-legged, usually winged,...

MOST people do not know even of the existence in their own bodies of a fluid called "the lymph," and of a system of vessels and spaces containing it which ramify like the blood-...

A GREAT and undoubtedly very important difference between man and apes is the much greater size of the brain in man. This difference is most conveniently measured by filling the...

THE recent discoveries of the actual bones of very early races of man raise again a general interest in the inquiry as to what are the actual differences of structure between me...

THE upright carriage of man has entailed remarkable changes in the proportions and shapes of parts of his body, as well as leading to special skill in the use of his hands. The...

experiments with animals, similar to that of the patriarch Jacob. The experiments and their record would not be difficult with animals. Though some farmers may believe that such...

SOME men of unbalanced minds have lately proposed deliberately and completely to obliterate all the artistic work of past generations of man in order, as they openly profess, th...

THE splendour of our Sussex Weald, with its shady forests and lovely gardens, around which rise the majestic Downs sweeping in long graceful curves marked by the history of our...

LET us now leave the beach-pebbles and go down on to the rocks at low tide in order to see some of the living curiosities of the seashore. There are some seaside resorts where,...

RED, crimson, scarlet, hot, the river of life, the carrier of all that is good and all that is bad by its myriad streams through our bodies; the rarest, most precious, most gorg...

IT is always amusing to find the lower animals behaving in various circumstances of life very much as we do ourselves. There is a tendency to look upon such conduct on the anima...

THE German poet Schiller arrived long ago at the conclusion that the machinery of the world is driven by hunger and by love. If we join with hunger, which is the craving of the...

THE "displays" made by male birds and by some other animals which lead to the "fascination" of the females, and apparently to a condition similar to that which is called "hypnot...

IT is quite true that one should not refuse to entertain the possibility of something almost incredible taking place, simply because it is highly improbable that it has taken pl...

THE ship's barnacle looks at first, when you see one of a group of them hanging from a piece of floating timber, like a little smooth, white bivalve shell, as big as your thumb-...

THE "beach" on our English coast is an accumulation of pebbles or of sand, or of both, often accompanied by dead shells and other fragments thrown up by the sea. Very generally...

IN August when so many people are either shooting or eating that delectable bird--the grouse--a few words about him and his kind will be seasonable. "Grouse" is an English word...

AMBER is not unfrequently picked up among the pebbles of the East Coast. I once picked up a piece on the beach at Felixstowe as big as a turkey's egg, thinking it was an ordinar...

WHEREVER there is a sandy seashore with here and there masses of dead seaweed and corallines thrown up by the waves, you will find sand-hoppers feeding on the debris. They are c...

IT is a remarkable fact that although the first efforts of the founders of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge, two hundred and fifty years ago, in this cou...

THERE are curious facts about sand which can be studied on the seashore. There are the "quicksands," mixtures of sand and water, which sometimes engulf pedestrians and horsemen...

34, 35, 40, and 42. I have copied figures 4 to 8, 11, 19, and 20 from the drawings made by Philip Henry Gosse, F.R.S., and published by him in that wonderful little book "Marine...

TWO widely-spread "beliefs"--in regard to the complicated and not generally familiar subject of the reproduction of animals--are, in addition to that dealt with in the last chap...