x PREFACE. 



by the latest obtainable information any points which he 

 might have regarded as being doubtful. Secondly, be- 

 cause no one but the author can so satisfactorily maintain 

 his views after publication, reply to objections, and make 

 concessions, if, after controversy, any of his opinions 

 are found untenable. 



Such considerations should not be disregarded by 

 the reader, if anywhere in these pages he meet with 

 some statement or opinion not wholly, as he thinks, 

 in accordance with another expressed elsewhere. The 

 book has not been harmonised, nor its contents collated, 

 by any last review of its author, so as to bring about a 

 complete verbal agreement in all cases. A little re- 

 flexion will generally show that there is no real inconsis- 

 tency. It may also very well happen that the opinions 

 expressed will appear to be less clearly established than 

 they might have been, had the power of reply remained 

 with the author. He alone was competent to have 

 adequately defended his own views. 



Still, in spite of all these drawbacks, I cannot but 

 hope that the present work may not only be found of 

 a positive value with reference to the subjects with 

 which it deals, and interest many who follow kindred 

 pursuits to those the author took so much delight in ; 

 but that it will appeal also to a wider public. Nothing 

 ought to have more interest for us children of a high 

 civilisation than to look back to earlier and ruder times, 

 when men were few and wild beasts plentiful ; and 

 nothing, I think, does interest us more. To us, living 

 as we do in a land cultivated like a garden, where 

 scarcely a wild creature could exist without strict preser- 



