A Vertebrate Fauna of Lakeland, including Cumberland and Westmoreland, with Lancashire North of the Sands

Abstract

INTRODUCED to the vocabulary of naturalists by Mr. H. Cottrell Watson, more than fifty years ago, and that in the most prosaic way, the word “Lakes,” as the name of an English district, still keeps its poetic fragrance, which is perhaps even intensified by its modern modification into “Lakeland,” notwithstanding the very technical prefix, as in the title of this book, of “A Vertebrate Fauna.” One is naturally led to think of that school of versifiers whose early efforts excited so many conflicting feelings when the century was young, but whose later lays have at length brought conviction of their worthiness to the minds of most. One of their company, he who furnishes the motto of this journal, has especially been hailed as the Poet of Nature, and not only does the fame of Wordsworth wax yearly, but there are those who greet every line he wrote with adulation. To such admirers the author of the book before us will seem to have missed his opportunity, in that we fail to find in the whole volume any indication of the penultimate Poet Laureate having ever belonged to the “Vertebrate Fauna of Lakeland.” Does this signify that naturalists are not poetical or that the great “Poet of Nature” was not a naturalist? The question is so momentous that we leave it for consideration by our readers, not daring to vouchsafe a reply, nor venturing to suggest to Mr. Macpherson that he has been wrong in resisting the temptation to illustrate his work by quotations, that might be gathered by the handful from the thousands of verses which flowed from the pen of the “bard of Rydal,” or any of his brethren.

A Vertebrate Fauna of Lakeland, including Cumberland and Westmoreland, with Lancashire North of the Sands.

By the Rev. H. A. Macpherson, with a Preface by R. S. Ferguson, F.S.A. (Edinburgh: D. Douglas, 1892.)