DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Science from an Easy Chair
Science from an Easy Chair. Second Series
From an Easy Chair
Extinct Animals
The Kingdom of Man
A CORNER IN A MARINE AQUARIUM, PAINTED BY PHILIP HENRY
GOSSE, F.R.S.
The scene shews the great white Sea Anemone of Weymouth. In front are tworichly coloured sea-worms (Serpula) issuing from their calcareous tubes, attachedto a dead scallop's shell. The green sea-grass (Zostera) and a translucent pinksea-weed, left and right, complete the picture
DIVERSIONS OF A
NATURALIST
BY
Sir RAY LANKESTER
K.C.B., F.R.S.
WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN COLOUR AND FORTY-THREE
OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
First Published in 1915
PREFACE
AT this time of stress and anxiety we all, howeversteadfast in giving our service to the great task inwhich our country is engaged, must, from time to time,seek intervals of release from the torrent of thoughtswhich is set going by the tremendous fact that we arefighting for our existence. To very many relief comesin splendid self-sacrificing action, in the joyful exerciseof youthful strength and vigour for a noble cause. Buteven these, as well as those who are less fortunate, needintervals of diversion—brief change of thought and mentaloccupation—after which they may return to their greatduties rested and refreshed.
I know that there are many who find a never-failingsource of happiness in acquaintance with things belongingto that vast area of Nature which is beyond and apartfrom human misery, an area unseen and unsuspected bymost of us and yet teeming with things of exquisitebeauty; an area capable of yielding to man knowledgeof inestimable value. Many are apt to think thatthe value of "Science" is to be measured mainly, ifnot exclusively, by the actual power which it has[Pg vi]conferred on man—mechanical and electrical devices,explosives, life-saving control over disease. They wouldsay of Science, as the ignoble proverb tells us of Honesty,that it is "the best policy." But Honesty is far morethan that, and so is Science. Science has revealed toman his own origin and history, and his place in thisworld of un-ending marvels and beauty. It has givenhim a new and unassailable outlook on all things bothgreat and small. Science commends itself to us as doesHonesty and as does great Art and all fine thought anddeed—not as a policy yielding material profits, butbecause it satisfies man's soul.
I offer these chapters to the reader as possibly affordingto him, as their revision has to me, a welcomeescape, when health demands it, from the immense andinexorable obsession of warfare.