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, y 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 



