naturalist 的詞源

“動植物學家，”約公元1600年來自法語 naturaliste，源自 natural（參見 natural（形容詞））。更早的“研究自然而不是精神事物的人”（1580年代）。中英語的一個稱呼“自然哲學家或科學家”是 naturien（14世紀後期）。

[The naturalist on expedition, pursued by a Nile crocodile, has climbed a palm tree for safety.]

Suddenly he experienced a new shudder of terror, as he remembered an article which he had inserted in the Belfast Review, and in which he had himself declared that crocodiles climb trees like cats. He would gladly have thrown this article into the fire, but it was too late, all Belfast had read it, it had been translated into Arabic and no Oriental author had yet refuted it, not even at Crocodilopolis. [Graham's Magazine, November 1855]

突然間，他體驗到一種新的恐懼，想起了一篇他在貝爾法斯特評論中發表的文章，在那篇文章中，他自己宣稱鱷魚像貓一樣爬樹。他很想把這篇文章扔進火裏，但爲時已晚，貝爾法斯特的人都讀過它，它被翻譯成阿拉伯語，甚至在鱷魚城沒有任何東方作家反駁它。【格雷厄姆雜誌，1855年11月】