VILLAGE STREET WHITE S HOUSE. 



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 



IN agreeing to the request of the proprietors of the National 

 Illustrated Libary, to give my assistance to their present 

 edition of the " Natural History of Selborne," I have felt that 

 there was a danger of making repetitions, and a difficulty of 

 adding much that was new to a work which had been printed 

 in so many forms, and had been of late years so much written 

 about. But the wish to extend among a new generation of 

 readers the knowledge of a book which, in the opinion of every 

 one, is well fitted for the perusal of young persons, and is a 

 valuable record and example how the leisure hours of a country 

 clergyman may be profitably and innocently employed, induced 



me to comply. There was also the desire to make some 



A 2 



