PREFACE. 



Many years have now passed away since we were 

 presented with that very interesting and amusing book, 

 the " Natural History of Selborne : " nor do I recollect any 

 publication at all resembling it having since appeared. 

 It early impressed on my mind an ardent love for all the 

 ways and economy of nature, and I was thereby led to 

 the constant observance of the rural objects around 

 me. Accordingly, reflections have arisen, and notes 

 been made, such as the reader will find them. The two 

 works do not, I apprehend, interfere with each other. 

 The meditations of separate naturalists in fields, in 

 wilds, in woods, may yield a similarity of ideas ; yet 

 the different aspects under which the same things are 

 viewed, and characters considered, afford infinite variety 

 of description and narrative : mine, I confess, are but 

 brief and slight sketches ; plain observations of nature, 

 the produce often of intervals of leisure and shattered 

 health, affording no history of the country; a mere 

 outline of rural things; the journal of a traveller 

 through the inexhaustible regions of nature. 



