INTRODUCTION. 
In the “ Evenings at Home” of Mrs. Barbauld and 
Dr. Aikin, one of the few books for children which 
may be read with profit by persons of all ages, there 
is an instructive story, entitled ‘Eyes and No Eyes, 
or the Art of Seeing.” Two schoolboys, at the 
close of a holyday, set out together to take a sum- 
mer’s walk: one saunters listlessly on, without look- 
ing on the right hand or on the left; the other pass- 
es nothing without finding some point of interest 
or amusement. “I have been,” says the saunterer, 
“to Broom Heath, and so round by the windmill 
upon Camp Mount, and home through the meadows 
by the river’s side; and I thought it very dull, for I 
scarcely met with a single person; I had rather by 
half have gone along the turnpike road.” “I have 
had,” says the observer, “oh! the pleasantest walk! 
I went all over Broom Heath, and so up to the mill 
at the top of the hill, and then down among the 
green meadows by the side of the river; and I am 
sure I hardly took a step that did not delight me; 
I have brought my handkerchief full of curiosities 
home.” 
In the account which the observant boy subjoins 
of his interesting ramble (the other had nothing to 
tell) over the heath and the meadows, it is remark- 
able that birds constitute more than two thirds of 
his story. He saw a wheatear hopping about a pile 
of stones ; a flock of lapwings throwing their fantas- 
tic somersets in the air, and one of them tumbling 
along as if her wing had been broken to lure him 
from her nest; he saw a kingfisher, with its splen- 
did plumage of green, orange, and blue, darting after 
