xx PREFACE. 



children's books as having raised the character of such pub- 

 lications. "Had it been designed," he says, speaking of 

 own work, " for a different class of readers, a larger compass 

 might have been taken, and a more learned and elevated 

 character of writing have been aimed at, yet it must still 

 have remained essentially the same; and its merit must 

 still have been that of compilation. The plan itself is a 

 borrowed one ; and you must certainly recollect its model 

 in one of your own little books, where, in a very entertain- 

 ing manner, you give a brief description of the several 

 months, formed of some of the most striking circumstances 

 attending each. What you have done for a child three or 

 four years old, I have attempted for young people from ten 

 to fourteen/' 



In editing from the MSS. of White, he carried yet higher 

 his desires of extending acquaintance with natural history ; 

 the work compiled by him from that source being adapted 

 to students of adult powers, and embodying many facts 

 which were altogether new, at the time of their publication, 

 to naturalists generally. Founded on the observation of 

 nature their interest is calculated to endure. 



JAMES EDMUND HARTING. 



Lincoln's Inn Fields, Sept. 1874. 



