viii Preface. 



about the midland village, which lies in ordinary English 

 country, will explain their own geography. 



One word about the title and the arrangement of the 

 chapters. We Oxford tutors always reckon our year as 

 beginning with the October term, and ending with the 

 close of the Long Vacation. My chapters are arranged 

 on this reckoning ; to an Oxford residence from October 

 to June, broken only by short vacations, succeeds a brief 

 holiday in the Alps ; then comes a sojourn in the mid- 

 lands ; and of the leisurely studies which the latter 

 part of the Long Vacation allows, I have given an 

 ornithological specimen in the last chapter. 



Some parts of the first, second, and fifth chapters 

 have appeared in the Oxford Magazine, and I have to 

 thank the Editors for leave to reprint them. The third 

 chapter, or rather the substance of it, was given as a 

 lecture to the energetic Natural History Society of 

 Marlborough College, and has already been- printed in 

 their reports ; the sixth chapter has been developed out 

 of a paper lately read before the Oxford Philological 

 Society. 



The reader will notice that I have said very little 

 about uncommon birds, and have tried to keep to the 

 habits, songs, and haunts of the commoner kinds, which 

 their very abundance endears to their human friends. I 

 have made no collection, and it will therefore be obvious 

 to ornithologists that I have no scientific knowledge of 

 structure and classification beyond that which I have 

 obtained at second-hand. And, indeed, if I thought I 



