MY COUNTRY STUDY 221 



Ball's " The Earth's Beginning " ; Cundall's " Every Day Book 

 of Natural History " ; Buckland's " Curiosities of Natural 

 History " ; Bateman's " Fresh Water Aquaria " ; Scharff's 

 " History of the European Fauna " ; Paterson's " Notes of an 

 East Coast Naturalist," " Nature in Eastern Norfolk," and 

 "Man and Nature on Tidal Waters"; Peckham's "Wasps, 

 Social and Solitary"; Geikie's and Lyell's "Geology"; 

 Shakspere ; Fabre's " Life and Love of the Insect " ; Darwin's 

 " Descent of Man " and " Origin of Species " ; Step's " Wayside 

 and Woodland Blossoms " ; South's " Butterflies and Moths of 

 the British Isles " ; Baikie's " Peeps at the Heavens " ; Hooker's 

 " Students' Flora of the British Islands " ; Mrs Gatty's " Parables 

 from Nature " ; quaint old Culpeper's " British Herbal " ; 

 Rimmer's " Land and Freshwater Shells of the British Isles " ; 

 Synge's " Story of the World " ; Pryor's "Flora of Hertford- 

 shire " ; Sutton Palmer's " Bonnie Scotland," and, of course, 

 a choice selection of the Poets, all these find an honoured place 

 in my little library for reference and inspiration. 



There are, too, a number of presentation volumes from living 

 authors, and others who have passed hence. Of these I do not 

 feel disposed to write, nor even to mention by name, as the 

 cherished inscriptions upon the fly-leaves bear the imprint of 

 friendships which have become cemented as the years rolled by, 

 never, let us hope, to be broken, until the final chapter comes to 

 be written. 



There are other rows of books upon my shelves which modesty 

 forbids me to mention, and of which this present volume now 

 forms a part. I can only interpolate here that my literary work 

 has afforded me considerable pleasure, and, as Arthur Paterson 

 would facetiously remark, " a good deal of scribbling." I have 

 never awakened one morning, as the usual story goes, to suddenly 

 find myself famous, or, for that matter, infamous, but that my 

 books have been received with favour is testified by the several 

 editions through which they have passed, and the many volumes 

 of press cuttings, letters from unknown correspondents and 

 well-known persons, which for a long time I have collected and 

 preserved in chronological order. These scrap-books are of 

 themselves an adequate index to my life, as they also contain 

 printed copies of most of my literary contributions during the 

 last twenty-eight years, with records of my lectures, doughty 

 deeds upon the cricket field, and other things incidental to my 

 life as a Naturalist, and lover of outdoor pursuits. 



