TO THE READER 



WERE this volume of a quality to merit a second or 

 explanatory title, that should be THE MIXTURE AS 

 BEFORE. Like its predecessors in the series, it is no 

 more than an expansion of notes made chiefly in the 

 open air upon incidents and phenomena, for the 

 explanation of which, when they puzzled me, I have 

 had recourse to the writings or oral advice of competent 

 authorities. But whereas note-books, irregularly kept, 

 are not convenient as jogs to a treacherous memory, I 

 have indulged in the luxury of having their contents 

 set up in fair type. 



Five - and - twenty consecutive summers spent in 

 attendance on Parliament having convinced me more 

 firmly than ever that Douglas of old was in the right 

 when he said he loved better to hear the lark sing than 

 the mouse squeak, most of the following pages treat of 

 what passes out of doors. Yet what are woods and 

 fields, ' the league-long roller thundering on the beach,' 

 the windy moorland and the falling flood, without their 

 historic that is, their human association? Where- 

 fore, standing cheek by jowl with memoranda on 

 A2 



