viii PREFACE. 



to point out that, as a matter of style which Is so much talked of 

 now-a-days, it is very much superior to the stiffest writing of the 

 nineteenth century. He refers to the garden fauvet ; and those 

 who have gardens would find it interesting to plant the crown 

 imperial where it could be easily observed, in order to see the 

 incident repeated. The humming-bird-like fancy for sweet- 

 ness is not confined to this white-throat ; even the sparrows are 

 believed to sometimes peck open the nectaries of flowers for the 

 same purpose. Shrikes eat that part of the humble bee that 

 contains the honey, while the Redstart has a habit of watching 

 about where there are honey-laden flowers, with a view, not to 

 the honey, but to the insects that come for it. Out of this 

 observation of Mr. White's a variety of further observations 

 expand themselves, and you might go on and on till you had 

 written a long letter about it. You might ask, for instance, 

 whether the visits of birds to flowers may not have something 

 to do with modifying their form as well as those of insects. As 

 many animals eat honey, and as man himself in every country, 

 from the Hottentots upwards, seeks for honey, it may be said 

 that man in this way has worked out some part of the adaptations 

 of plant structure. 



Here we branch off into abstruse scientific questions, and see 

 how different minds may trace out the bearing of the same fact. 

 The old naturalist at Selborne simply records it in language 

 which could not be better chosen, highly delighted evidently, 

 and taking a deep interest in it for its own sake. In the same 

 manner any one who has a taste for out-of-door observations 

 may study natural history without any previous scientific 

 learning. There is not the smallest need to know the Latin 

 names of the birds in order to watch them, or of the flowers in 

 order to gather them. Perhaps the Latin names are learned a 

 great deal easier afterwards than before. After you know the 

 things themselves, it is not at all difficult to fit the scientific 

 name to them, and quite easy to recollect the crabbed Latin. If 

 you try to get the nomenclature first, then it is very hard work. 

 If, on the other hand, your mind dwells upon science, and the 

 questions it has opened up of late years, and you feel yourself 



