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Updated: May 15, 2025
Who doubts that a mosquito will perch itself upon the skin of a human being, pierce it with its proboscis, and suck away until it is gorged with blood! Why does it appear strange that a bat should do the same? Now your closet-naturalist will believe that the bat does suck the blood of cattle and horses, but denies that it will attack man! This is sheer nonsense.
There is one thing that is almost intolerable, and that is the conceit of the "closet-naturalist," who sneers at everything as untrue that seems to show the least design on the part of the brute creation who denies everything that appears at all singular or fanciful, and simply because it appears so.
In my opinion," continued Lucien, warming with the enthusiasm of a true naturalist, "it is a most impertinent interference with the beautiful things of Nature her birds and quadrupeds, her plants and flowers to couple them with the names of kings, princes, lords, and lordlings, who chance to be the local gods of some closet-naturalist.
They have hitherto generally been classed with the antelopes, though for what reason it is hard to tell. Observation of this class is usually worth far more than the "speculations" of the closet-naturalist. The gnoo has long been the favourite food of the frontier farmer and hunter. Its beef is well flavoured, and the veal of a gnoo-calf is quite a delicacy.
They have hitherto generally been classed with the antelopes, though for what reason it is hard to tell. Observation of this class is usually worth far more than the "speculations" of the closet-naturalist. The gnoo has long been the favourite food of the frontier farmer and hunter. Its beef is well flavoured, and the veal of a gnoo-calf is quite a delicacy.
There is one thing that is almost intolerable, and that is the conceit of the "closet-naturalist," who sneers at everything as untrue that seems to show the least design on the part of the brute creation who denies everything that appears at all singular or fanciful, and simply because it appears so.
On the contrary, it usually, when put into plain English, gives us only the name often a clumsy and unpronounceable German one of some obscure friend of the author, or, as is not unfrequently the case, some lordly patron for whom your closet-naturalist entertains a flunkeyish regard, and avails himself of this means of making it known to his Maecenas.
Who doubts that a mosquito will perch itself upon the skin of a human being, pierce it with his proboscis, and suck away until it is gorged with blood? Why does it appear strange that a bat should do the same? Now your closet-naturalist will believe that the bat does suck the blood of cattle and horses, but denies that it will attack man! This is sheer nonsense.
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