I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME

ΤΟ

MY OLD COMRADES OF THE TWENTY-SECOND

(CHESHIRE) REGIMENT,

IN REMEMBRANCE OF OUR BROTHERHOOD,

EXTENDING OVER TWO-AND-TWENTY YEARS,

IN VARIOUS QUARTERS OF THE GLOBE.

PREFACE.

TH

HE following studies were conducted during leisure hours snatched from other and more pressing avocations, and have been subject to the frequent interruptions which fall to the lot of the observer who is prevented from devoting continuous attention to his work. This may in some measure explain any want of cohesion and strict systematic arrangement that may be apparent in the method of treating the subjects dealt with, whilst my short residence in New Brunswick disqualifies me from writing an exhaustive treatise on its natural history. Nevertheless I hope, as one of the first attempts towards elucidating the natural history of an important and interesting portion of the Canadian Dominion, that my little volume may receive some favour, more especially on the other side of the Atlantic, where cultivators of this branch of learning have not, until of late years, been by any means numerous. Indeed, considering the inviting fields presented by the New World, it appears surprising how little has been accomplished in what naturalists call Field Studies; for although almost every animal and many of the plants and rocks have been named and described, very little is known of their geographical distribution, which has elsewhere been ascertained by compounding the labours of local and independent observers. The explanation of

this defect, at all events as regards North America, might be accounted for on the hitherto dominant principle that the sole aim of science should strictly be utility as applied to the physical wants and interests of mankind; or, in other words, that whatever learning did not show the all-mighty Dollar in prospective, was at once to be condemned as futile! This dogma, so apparent formerly, is now, however, rapidly vanishing, both in the United States and Canada.

Reverting to the circumstances under which the following observations were obtained, it might not be altogether out of place were I to indite a few further remarks, mostly with the view of recommending the study of the natural sciences to individuals who may enjoy the leisure and taste for like pursuits. Yet I wish more particularly to address myself to the younger officers of the Army and Navy, and to none more pointedly than members of my own profession, whose previous studies render them especially adapted for prosecuting physical inquiries.

Thus, a knowledge of human anatomy, physiology, chemistry, and botany, forming portions of a medical education, is eminently qualified to foster tastes for natural history researches; whilst, on the other hand, the grand principles of the construction and functional agencies of lowlier organisms, mineralogy, and surface geology, would doubtless prove of great advantage in the elucidation of some obscure and hidden forms of disease, their causes, and remedies. The benefits, however, derivable under these heads are so selfevident that further comment seems to me unnecessary. In fine, let me exhort Army and Navy officers generally to try physical studies as remedies for idleness during the many leisure hours spent in often less profitable undertakings, for Nature's field is broad and inviting, so that he who runs may read. To my confrères experienced in travel I would bring the matter home in this way-Think of the dreary, listless life on the foreign station; the cankering ennui and trying

climate; no books, no recreations, to turn to excepting the one unknown book of Nature spread out before him, which, however, is about the last he feels himself capable of perusing. He may know thoroughly the theory and practice of his immediate calling, but not having been taught to seek an acquaintance with any of the collateral sciences beyond his own, he looks on the teeming beauties of the external world with indifference, so that

"A primrose by the river's brim
A yellow primrose is to him,
And it is nothing more."

The topography of countries and physical geography of the sea are to him sealed letters. He may be wandering in regions where no physical inquirer ever set foot, and be surrounded on all sides by natural objects both inviting and instructive. But his eye had not been trained to an inquisitive appreciation of Nature, and it is just as much as he can do to take in a few salient points which, even by comparison with former experiences, fall dead on an understanding already dulled and surfeited by a profusion of much that is grand and beautiful in Creation. It is needless to remark what a panacea for idleness, and its often frightful train of evils, is the study of Nature, and in particular to persons so circumstanced. I am not, however, advocating its cause on the strength of being only a method of keeping one's hand out of a worse turn, but in the belief that the highest and most important object of all human science ought to be mental improvement (using the term in its most comprehensive sense), and that when pursued with a different aim its effects are often rather pernicious than beneficial. The study of Nature, in particular field-work, when properly cultivated, is assuredly adapted to invigorate discipline, and develop the mental powers, and thus supply materials for the grandest ultimate truths. It robs the mind of contracted and pigmy