vi LETTERS TO MARCO 



to my mind is, that my readers may imagine 

 that I am attempting something after how- 

 ever long after Gilbert White. But though 

 I may indeed pray with the poet- 

 Great prefect, in thy Heavenly Master's school, 

 If there are places in the world to be 

 For humble minds who own the same mild rule, 

 Mine would I choose not all too far from thee 



yet nothing would be more distasteful to me, 

 or to the shade of him whose centenary we 

 have just celebrated, than such a comparison. 

 Mr. Marks used humorously to call these 

 letters my D.B. (Daines Barrington) letters: 

 but his tongue is privileged ; for I can lay 

 claim to very little of the scientific knowledge 

 or to the patient method of investigation 

 which made White what he was ; and my 

 excuse for accepting my friend's suggestion 

 reduces itself therefore to the somewhat lame 

 one, that there is always value in any records 

 of the ways of nature, no matter by whom 



