xii PREFACE. 



it was deemed advisable to restrict the volume in its 

 dimensions to three hundred pages, and in its charac- 

 ter to a simple introduction, a kind of " reading made 

 easy" to the youthful hutterfly-hunter. 



The author cannot lay down his pen before he has 

 acknowledged the gratification he feels from the liberal 

 encouragement his literary labours have received : it 

 would be false modesty to pretend blindness to the fact 

 that the humble efforts of his pen and pencil have been 

 unusually successful ; and this knowledge raises in his 

 heart a feeling of honest pride and gratitude he would 

 fain express, yet knows not how. 



Reader, should the author persuade thee, by a pe- 

 rusal of these pages, to follow in his footsteps, to 

 tread the paths which he has trodden, to gaze with 

 an enquiring and delighted eye on those things which 

 he has gazed on, it is enough. He bids thee, affec- 

 tionately, farewell! 



