PREFACE ii 



lands, either in adventurous ambition to see 

 the world, or from sheer compulsion to make 

 their way in life with greater opportunities 

 than they can find in the Old Country. 

 Necessity, then, and choice combine to send 

 thousands of young fellows every year to India, 

 Africa, Canada, or those farther colonies that 

 lie on the other side of the world. In one 

 sense, no doubt, the Mother Country is the 

 loser by this steady drain on the best of her 

 blood, and it has even been compared with the 

 loss of the strongest and bravest of her man- 

 hood in war. Yet there is this difference that, 

 whereas those who fall in battle are gone for 

 all time, many who make a career overseas 

 return home to end their days. This is true 

 of practically all who, as soldiers, civil servants, 

 or planters, go to India ; and those who, in 

 the kinder climates of other outposts of the 

 Empire, settle permanently in their adopted 

 home, remain loyal at heart to the old country 

 and rally round her when she needs them. 



This book, then, is intended as an introduc- 

 tion to Nature Study in those vast territories 

 beyond the seas over which the British flag is 

 still kept flying. How different are they from 



