PREFATORY NOTE. 



IN order to anticipate the discovery by others that I have 

 omitted some of the Poets Insects, I avail myself of the Author's 

 privilege of a Preface to say that my list does not contain, 

 except incidentally, any of the beetles (although such notable 

 insects as the " book-worm " and the " death-watch " are of the 

 tribe], any of the "gnats " or wasps, both so cordially detested 

 by the Poets, or any of their favourite worms. Among the 

 fishes, again, owing to a mishap to manuscript, there is a 

 hiatus, which would be of no importance but for the con- 

 sequent omission of Thomson's lines on Angling already 

 largely drawn upon, however, in my " Poets' Beasts" 



Acting on the advice of my Friends (the Critics of my two 

 previous volumes}, I have added an Index to this, the third, 

 and hope that their prediction of the increased usefulness of 

 my work from such an addition may be fulfilled. The task 

 which the publication of this volume completes was undertaken 

 by the Author, and accepted by his Publishers as one which 

 should be of use to men of letters ; and if has been a great 

 pleasure to notice, during the last four years, from the columns 

 of newspapers and the pages of magazines, reviews, and books, 

 that our expectations have been satisfactorily realised ; and I 

 can assure those Writers who, after availing themselves of the 



quotations which I had brought together expressly for their 



b 



