INTRODUCTORY ' 3 



One great attraction of the rural life is the constant 

 change that is going on around us ; there is really no time 

 to be dull, no call for self-pity. In Nature's great picture 

 gallery there is infinite variety of subject. In the clear, 

 frosty days of mid-winter the sun, shining on the rime- 

 covered trees and herbage, turns the whole countryside 

 into glittering fairyland, and in the sweet Springtide, when 

 all Nature is instinct with life, the copses teem with 

 primroses and wind-flowers, and the woodlands are carpeted 

 in purple with innumerable hyacinths. To these succeed 

 the glorious Summer days, when the air is full of the 

 melody of birds, and when everything is instinct with the 

 joy of life ; and these halcyon days pass insensibly Into 

 the no less glorious days of Autumn, when the valleys 

 laugh and sing with golden harvest, and the woods are 

 aflame with the foliage of the beech, the birch, or the 

 maple, or clothed in crimson, or russet, or purple, with a 

 splendour that makes one's colour-box a broken reed 

 indeed, when one would endeavour to depict something of 

 this beauty and richness of tint. It is to these latter days 

 we turn for inspiration for our pages, for subjects of our 

 illustrations. 



It has been suggested that while many persons will 

 find a wealth of interest in the flowers they see around 

 them in their country rambles, the hedgerow fruits can 

 scarcely be expected to awaken a like regard ; but such 

 a suggestion appears to be but a mere begging of the 

 question, a starting-point that we cannot accept. Nor 

 does one at all care to argue out the more or less of 

 interest, for to the real lover of Nature the appreciation of 

 her works is all-embracing, excluding all idea of deprecia- 



