xii PREFACE. 



superstitions ; indeed, there are scattered notices of these as of 

 the shrew ash. He knew the farmers and the squires ; he had 

 access everywhere, and he had the quickest of eyes. It must 

 ever be regretted that he did not leave a natural history of the 

 people of his day. We should then have had a picture of 

 England just before the beginning of our present era, and a 

 wonderful difference it would have shown. The gallows-trees 

 grew far too plentifully at the cross roads in those days, and the 

 laws were inhuman, men were put to death like wild beasts : in 

 fact, they seemed to look on man as a species of wolf that could 

 only be tamed by stretching its neck. Let us not wish for the 

 good old times of Gilbert White, they are gone ; but his 

 fields and hedges remain to us more peaceful now than ever. 



Perhaps the Naturalises Calendar is that part of the book 

 that will be found most valuable to those who take up this 

 study. The dates are not the same every year of course, and 

 that is what makes the interest if you keep a pocket-book 

 founded on this model and look back in a year or two. By its 

 aid you will miss very little. I did not come across Mr. White's 

 book till late in the day, when it was, in fact, too late, else this 

 Calendar would have been of the utmost advantage to me. 

 Such data, though they may refer to apparently trivial details, 

 often prove in after years the basis of important scientific con- 

 clusions. I have said nothing of the different aspect that has 

 been cast on natural history in our days by the works of 

 Darwin and the general drift of modern science. To compare 

 the natural history of White with the natural history of our 

 time would require a large space. Better, perhaps, take them 

 apart and read the Natural History of Selborne as it was 

 written. 



RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



