Australias First Naturalists PDF Download

Excerpt from In Australian Wilds: The Gleanings of a Naturalist Mr. Barrett has in late years seen and studied strange phases of Nature in other lands - in Egypt, in Sinai, in Palestine - where one may still check his impressions by reference to the first book of Nature. And at the end of it he has come back, not to tell us of war, either in its romance or its realities, but to drop quietly into the old haunts and seclusions and give us in his first published words just the old hobby and the old home things. The one thing which all his old friends and admirers would have wished is that everyone who takes up this book could know the author of it as we do. It would have added much to their enjoyment and understanding of his work. He is a tireless, even a daring hunter, without the hunter's limitations in daring most only for the things that are good to kill and to eat. The author, though he has what the scientist is pleased to call attainments, is in no sense a cabinet naturalist. His book is popular, which means that it is human. The actual anatomy of bird or beast appeals to him less than its habits, its activities, and, above all, its living rights, in Nature's wonderful scheme of things. The name of a thing - the point where scientific knowledge so often begins and ends - is of less importance to him than the thing it self. It is a book to read and keep for company's sake, in the same sense that a picture is so often aptly described as good to live with. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.