2 RM i ola ag 
s:* INTRODUCTION 19 
matter of much interest to know which 
aspects of Nature have given the greatest 
pleasure to, or have most impressed, those 
who, either from wide experience or from 
their love of Nature, may be considered best 
able tojudge.. I will begin with an English 
scene from Kingsley. He is describing his 
return from a day’s trout-fishing : — 
“What shall we see,” he says, “as we look 
across the broad, still, clear river, where the 
great dark trout sail to.and fro lazily in the 
sun? White chalk fields above, quivering 
hazy in the heat. A park full of merry hay- 
makers; gay red and blue waggons; stalwart 
horses switching off the flies; dark avenues 
of tall elms; groups of abele, ‘tossing their 
whispering silver to the sun’ ; and amid them 
the house,—a great square red-brick mass, 
made light and cheerful though by quoins 
and windows of white Sarsden stone, with 
high peaked French roofs, broken by louvres 
and dormers, haunted by a thousand swallows 
and starlings. Old walled gardens, gay with 
flowers, shall stretch right and left. Clipt 
yew alleys shall wander away into mysterious 
