Iv PREFACE. 
if wasps, instead of being the subject, seem sometimes 
the occasion of the discussion; I can only say that 
on such terms alone could I have written these 
pages. Only as an amusement, as each topic came 
freshly suggested by Nature at a leisure time, could 
the labour have ever been undertaken, and the idea 
persistently carried out. 
I apprehend, however, no hard criticism to tell me 
that this book, with all its faults, to which I am 
keenly alive, should never have been written at all. 
If I have added anything to our common stock of 
knowledge, I shall be held excused for having told 
my story in my own way. And further, if, m so 
doing, I shall have given as much pleasure to others 
as I have myself received from such like books, my 
present contribution to Natural History will have 
fully answered its purpose. 
BRIGHTON, 
January, 1868. 
