BRITISH BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 



THE first volume of the " British Birds " was barely 

 completed before the "Nests and Eggs of British 

 Birds/' as a natural sequel, was taken in hand, and 

 ultimately completed in three volumes ; but of all 

 the literary work to which the author's name was 

 attached, there was none which it gave him greater 

 and more unfeigned pleasure to write than the 

 " Natural History of British Butterflies." He used 

 to confess that it was the work which he himself 

 preferred to all his others, not excepting even his 

 " History of British Birds ; " and the reason was 

 not far to seek, for there was no pursuit that gave 

 him greater delight than entomology ; in him it 

 amounted almost to a passion. It was a taste which 

 no time nor circumstances ever altered in the least ; 

 as he once wrote of himself, he was " born an 

 entomologist." For every work of the Creator that 

 came under his notice he had an admiration, and 

 took it for granted that those for whom he wrote 

 shared to some extent at least his own feelings. 

 "Who can behold," he said in his preface to this work, 

 " a rich sunset, a storm, the sea, a tree, a mountain, 

 a river, a rainbow, a flower, without some degree 



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