PREFACE 
Ir is necessary that a book should have a title, and 
_ important that this should be descriptive of the book: 
accordingly, I was pleased with my good fortune and 
myself ‘when I hit upon one which was not merely 
descriptive but was attractive as well. 
This was a long time ago when these studies, 
essays and sketches of animal life began to accumu- 
late on my hands and I foresaw the book. Unhappily, 
long before my book was ready my nice title had 
occurred to some one else and was duly given by Sir 
E. Ray Lankester to his Diversions of a Naturalist 
—a collection of papers on a vast variety of subjects 
which had been appearing serially under another title. 
I was very much annoyed, not only because he is 
a big man and I am a little one and my need was 
therefore greater, but also because the title appeared 
to me better suited to my book than to his. He deals 
with the deep problems of biology and is not exactly 
a naturalist in the old original sense of the word: one 
who is mainly concerned with the “ life and conversa- 
tion of animals” and whose work is consequently 
more like play than his can be, even when it is 
Science from an Easy Chair. 
Vv 
