The parasite that causes malaria edges through the cells of the stomach wall of the mosquito and forms a cyst which grows and eventually bursts to release hundreds of sporozoites into the body cavity of the mosquito ... As far as we can tell, the parasite does not harm the mosquito ... It has always seemed to me, though, that these growing cysts ... must at least give the mosquito something corresponding to a stomach-ache.

A wise and well-informed humanist has taken the time to look lovingly and wonderingly at the living world around him, and to study the ways in which scientists have tried to analyze the world... THE BEST INTRODUCTION TO NATURAL HISTORY THAT HAS YET BEEN WRITTEN.

The commonest forms of amateur natural history in the United States are probably gardening, bird watching, the maintenance of aquarium fish, and nature photography.

The world of organisms, of animals and plants, is built up of individuals. I like to think, then, of natural history as the study of life at the level of the individual-of what plants and animals do, how they react to each other and their environment, how they are organized into larger groupings like populations and communities.

The parasite that causes malaria edges through the cells of the stomach wall of the mosquito and forms a cyst which grows and eventually bursts to release hundreds of sporozoites into the body cavity of the mosquito ... As far as we can tell, the parasite does not harm the mosquito ... It has always seemed to me, though, that these growing cysts ... must at least give the mosquito something corresponding to a stomach-ache.

One dictionary that I consulted remarks that "natural history" now commonly means the study of animals and plants "in a popular and superficial way," meaning popular and superficial to be equally damning adjectives. This is related to the current tendency in the biological sciences to label every subdivision of science with a name derived from the Greek. "Ecology" is erudite and profound; while "natural history" is popular and superficial. Though, as far as I can see, both labels apply to just about the same package of goods.

Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.