PREFACE. vu 
revealing Mr. Newman as the author of the whole. Much of 
the information on the birds and mammals of Godalming was, 
however, gleaned from his kind friend and frequent companion 
Waring Kidd, who, now in his eighty-eighth year, still lives at 
Godalming ; and modesty prevented Mr. Newman from assuming 
the authorship when the facts were not all his own. The 
‘Letters’ having been once begun under a nom de plume 
(‘Magazine of Natural History,’ 1832, vol. v. p. 601) it was 
conyenient to continue the pleasant fiction. It has probably 
escaped the notice of many that the last of these ‘ Letters’ were 
published in ‘Chambers’ Journal’ in 1850, and were on the 
house sparrow; mice, rats, weasels and stoats; feathered mousers ; 
and squirrels. In one branch of his ‘‘ Observations,” viz., the 
life-histories of insects injurious to agriculture, Rusticus was 
a pioneer: no such work had previously been attempted; and, 
great as is its value, few besides Mr. Newman and the late 
John Curtis have ever ventured upon it. These chapters on 
Economic Entomology were continued at irregular intervals 
in the ‘Entomologist,’ the ‘ Zoologist,’ and the ‘ Field,’ until 
towards the close of his life. 
In the year 1826 the wool business at Godalming was 
abandoned. It had never been a very profitable concern; and 
the parent, now past middle life, was desirous of freedom from 
commercial occupation. The son had never taken to it kindly. 
In the same year Mr. Newman came up to London, and 
entered into a rope business at Deptford. To a nature such as 
his—delighting in all the charms of a life in the country—the 
change to Deptford would have been most distasteful, had it not 
opened out further opportunities for the cultivation of friend- 
ships and society among men of his own tastes. The rope 
business was to a great extent managed by the foreman, who had 
held the same post in the wool business at Godalming. It was 
not allowed to become a drudgery, although to him commerce 
was never congenial. Only one day in each week was entirely 
devoted to its affairs; a small part of each of the remaining 
days sufficed. At the rope-walk he hada large garden, which 
he subsequently described as a place where everything grew as 
it liked. A large plot of ground was sown with the common red 
valerian, because of its attractiveness to insects; and here he 
