PREFACE. IX 



opportunities they afforded of intercourse with neigh- 

 bours, must have hung heavily on a country gentle- 

 man's hands a hundred years ago. 



It is, moreover, it appears to me, to this love of 

 sport, in one form or another, that we of this gene- 

 ration are indebted for those grand old woods which 

 now delight the eye, and which it would have been 

 a calamity to have lost. The green fertility of fields 

 answering with laughing plenty to human industry 

 is truly pleasrag ; but now that blue-bells, and 

 violets, foxgloves and primroses are being driven 

 from the hedgerows, and these themselves are fast 

 disappearing before the advances of agricultural 

 science, it is gratifying to think that there are wastes 

 and wilds where weeds may still resort — where the 

 perfumes of flowers, the songs of birds, and the music 

 of the breeze may be enjoyed. That the love of 

 nature which the out-door exercises of our ancestors 

 did so much to foster and perpetuate still survives 

 is evident. How often, for instance, among dwellers 

 in towns does the weary spirit pant for the fields, 

 that it may wing its flight with the lark through the 

 gushing sunshine, and join in the melody that goes 

 pealing through the fretted cathedral of the woods, 

 whilst caged by the demands of the hour, or kept 



