6 IN NATURE'S WAYS 



and beauty, making as sure appeal to young minds as 

 to those strong enough to scale mountains of difficulty 

 as that simple story of the little girl who, as she was 

 going to bed, used to remark on hearing the distant 

 murmuring from a rookery, " that the rooks were say- 

 ing their prayers." In the selected passages a teacher 

 may find golden lessons indeed, for the children's 

 reading or writing. 



I have chosen the passages on the general plan of 

 giving those which express simple truths, so that any 

 teacher may take them at random, and be sure that 

 they will serve for lessons, a word which in such a case 

 will lose its usual meaning to children. I have avoided 

 passages where the information given, or the theory 

 advanced, is faulty in the light of newer knowledge, 

 but this only as a general rule ; for those who under- 

 stand Gilbert White and his writings and his times 

 find no fault with his faults, and feel that much of the 

 charm of the letters lies in his doubts, questionings, 

 tentative theories, half believed in and half disbelieved, 

 his groping in the darkness of his age after the truth 

 by which he teaches us how to deduct and reason. 



Should Fates prove kindly, I hope to be able to 

 publish a second and more advanced volume, including 

 all the now neglected pages in the " History " which 

 fall into the general plan of the work to be an intro- 

 duction (if I may emphasise my purpose) to one of the 

 greatest books in the whole world. , , ~, 



DlTCHLING, 



SUSSEX, 1914. 



NOTE. The quoted passages throughout this book are in 

 smaller and darker typo than the commentary intended to amplify 

 and explain, supply some missing links in a story's chain, and give 

 a fuller understanding. Many of the passages are composite ; 

 and where it seemed advisable sentences have been deleted, and 

 some difficult words deleted or translated. 



