LETTER TO A BOOKMAKER. 523 



I could wish to introduce a word or two here, on your want of 

 knowledge concerning the habits and anatomy of the Toucan, but 

 am obliged for the present to defer them. I am, Sir, your obedient 

 servant, CHARLES WATERTON. 



WALTON HALL, March 10, 1837. 



LETTER TO A BOOKMAKER* 



WALTON HALL, NEAR WAKEFIELD, 

 June 28, 1863. 



MY DEAR SIR, I have just returned from a week's visit into 

 Wharfdale. There seems to be a strange misunderstanding relative 

 to the " Wanderings," and if I have ever written to you anything 

 expressive of a wish to have a strange edition of them, I must have 

 been under an hallucination. I could have written ten volumes as 

 easily as one. My sole object (having no patronage, nor any help 

 from any mortal man) was to incite the reader to go and wander in 

 that far distant region, and give a true and interesting account of his 

 adventures. Hence I press upon his mind that my own account is 

 nothing but a sketch. See page 22, 4th edition of the " Wanderings." 

 I could have given the scientific name, and the Indian name of every 

 bird and beast, but I carefully refrained from doing so. I gave the 

 world an original and scientific account, written down in pencil at 

 the close of every day ; not to be adonised, and filled full of vagaries 

 in an English printing-office. Hence, when I gave over the manu- 

 script to Mawman (the price given was to be distributed in charity), 

 he solemnly promised me that he would never allow one single 

 syllable to be changed ; and when I made a present of the 

 " Wanderings " (reverted to me by lapse of time) to old Mr Fel- 



* Waterton wrote many letters in which he exposed the errors or refuted the 

 attacks of closet-naturalists. I have selected this from a large series, in hopes that 

 its publication may for ever preserve the " Wanderings " from the injury to which 

 it refers. [ED.] 



