2 INTRODUCTORY. 



dead leaf will often indicate the precise spot to be watched. It 

 will be understood that as most of these creatures are more or 

 less nocturnal in their activities, observation must be continued 

 until sometime after dusk at least, in order to be successful. 



If the observer is new to this work, he should endeavour, if 

 possible on the first occasion at least to get as companion a 

 friend who has already some experience of field-work. A day 

 with such a companion will do more to open his eyes than a 

 whole chapter of printed hints ; for it is as true to-day as it was 

 in 1855, when Charles Kingsley wrote in his " Glaucus" "The 

 greatest difficulty in the way of beginners is (as in most things) 

 to * learn the art of learning.' They go out, search, find less 

 than they expected, and give the subject up in disappointment. 

 It is good to begin, therefore, if possible by playing the part of 

 1 jackal ' to some practised naturalist, who will show the tyro 

 where to look, what to look for, and, moreover, what it is that 

 he has found : often no easy matter to discover." On that last 

 point the " Wayside and Woodland Series " has done much to 

 simplify matters. 



Respecting the utility of taking an interest in these fellow 

 inhabitants of our country, one of the intellectual giants * of the 

 Victorian Age described Natural History "as the greatest of all 

 sources of that pleasure which is derivable from beauty. I do 

 not pretend," he says, " that natural-history knowledge, as such, 

 can increase our sense of the beautiful in natural objects. I do 

 not suppose that the dead soul of Peter Bell, of whom the great 

 poet of nature says 



' ' A primrose by the river's brim, 

 A yellow primrose was to him 

 And it was nothing more,' 



would have been a whit roused from its apathy by the informa- 

 tion that the primrose is a Dicotyledonous Exogen with a 

 monopetalous corolla and central placentation. But I advocate 

 * Huxley. 



