PREFACE. 



IF any reader of these < Stray Leaves' has ever been 

 in a wine-merchant's office, when wines were tasted 

 in quick succession, sample after sample, he will have 

 seen a dry biscuit, and perhaps a bit of cheese, inter- 

 posed, to blunt one distinctive flavour before judging 

 of the next. 



A similar office has been performed by my con- 

 tributions on folk-lore and science, to various maga- 

 zines ; in which judicious editors are wont to interpose 

 small condimentary fragments of distinctive taste, to 

 freshen the literary palate for deeper and more im- 

 portant subjects of mental culture. 



When an individual accepts without murmur his 

 destiny, not envying his betters, but honestly striving 

 to do his duty in the position to which it has pleased 

 God to call him, criticism should stand disarmed. I 

 ask an indulgent public to take the following Stray 

 Leaves of Science and Folk -Lore for what they are. 

 Preadamite man, extinct species, spectrum analysis, 

 and such-like minor topics, can advance no just claim 



