INTRODUCTION. XI 



ably excused, for our British Mammals do not, with the exception 

 perhaps of the Hare and Rabbit, lend themselves to close observa- 

 tion ; the same may be said of the Reptiles ; while, as regards Fishes, 

 Mr. Westell's angling moments belong, as has already been mention- 

 ed, to the birds on the bank rather than to the inhabitants of the 

 water that form the ostensible objects of his excursion. 



It is above all the writer's enthusiasm that we may envy him, and 

 that reflects itself in his pages to an extent that is contagious. With 

 immense seriousness he records the daily life of a Sparrow; the 

 thrusting above the earth's surface of a blade of Grass; the carolling 

 of a Lark in the heavens overhead. 



Wars may rage; Stocks may fall; the National prestige may be 

 threatened on the battlefield or on the yacht course; your devoted 

 Naturalist cares nought for such matters, yet is strangely moved by 

 the apparition of a rare bird in his garden, or by the sound of an 

 unfamiliar note in the thicket. 



And for this reason we may turn to this book, with its peaceful 

 text and beautiful illustrations from pen and camera, with a feeling 

 of gratitude that there be still some in our midst who think it worth 

 while to hold aloof from the hurry and worry of an age that is nothing 

 if not sensational, and who ramble with the spirit of Gilbert White 

 Gilbert White in all his old simplicity and not tricked out in the 

 footnotes and commentaries of five hundred "Editors" over the 

 fields and through the woods and beside the tumbling streams of a 

 homely Southern County, sharing with their readers the trifling 

 episodes of country life. 



F. G. AFLALO. 

 TEIGNMOUTH, DEVON, 

 FEBRUARY, 1903. 



