28 AUTUMNAL LEAVES. 



colour lies, and it is then that there is the 

 greatest wealth of contrasts . in wild Nature. 

 Hence, in representing, so to speak, in these 

 pages, this especial aspect of Autumn, it has been 

 sought to give the most typical and prominent of 

 autumnal leaves, and these will be found figured 

 in the coloured plates. 



The coloured figures have, as already inti- 

 mated, been copied from Nature the leaves 

 which they represent having been collected and 

 arranged by the Author, then photographed, and 

 so imitated as to give not merely their natural 

 tints, but an exact representation no less indeed 

 than a fac-simile of their characteristic venation. 

 This question of the venation of leaves is one 

 that deserves, from its interest and importance, 

 much more attention than it has hitherto ob- 

 tained. The mere outline of a leaf- though 

 the feature which more immediately strikes the 

 eye is by no means its only important feature. 

 But artists in general, even when drawing 

 individual leaves, have been content to give little 

 more than the outline. If the reader who has 

 been accustomed to notice only this most salient 



