CHAPTER IV 



THE MARSH "WARBLER IN OXFORDSHIRE AND 

 SWITZERLAND ^ 



Every one who is fond of reading books of travel 

 in the tropics must know what it is to long for an 

 hour or two of real life in a virgin forest, or in the 

 boundless expanse of the pampas, or even in the 

 depths of a mangrove swamp. We would willingly- 

 put up with mosquitoes and " piums " and poisonous 

 ants, if we could but see that world foj' ourselves 

 which Darwin and Bates and Wallace and Belt have 

 made almost, but not quite, a reality for us. Charles 

 Kingsley had this ambition all his life, and was able 

 in the end to indulge it. His enthusiastic delight at 

 what he saw in the West Indies made him even 

 more than usually eloquent, and his chapter on the 

 " High Woods " marks perhaps the highest point 



'■ A paper read to the Oxfordshire Natural History Society, 

 November 1893. 



