CIV PROLEGOMENA 



contrary, every pains has been taken to secure as high a standard 

 of scientific accuracy, as can fairly be expected from one who 

 resides in what the late Dean Stanley designated as ' the wilds 

 of Cumberland,' and who has often felt the inconvenience of 

 living at a great distance from town. Information has been 

 hewn, so to speak, from the native rock. It is only now 

 and then that the worker hits upon a valuable seam, and 

 months often elapse before this can be tapped. But so far as 

 circumstances have permitted, the facts here gathered together 

 have been uniformly set forth in chronological order. If my 

 critics pelt me with hard words, I shall plead with Hubert, 

 ' An your highness were to hang me, a man can but do his 

 best.' That I have won, and retained the unswerving allegiance 

 of the Lakeland naturalists, is in itself a reward for much 

 fruitless labour. The question of success or failure lies outside 

 the field of my binoculars.^ 



' No ; it must oft fall out 

 That one whose labour perfects any work 

 Shall rise from it with eye so worn that he 

 Of all men least can measure the extent 

 Of what he has accomplished. He alone, 

 Who, nothing tasked, is nothing weary too, 

 May clearly scan the little he effects ; 

 But we, the bystanders, untouched by toil, 

 Estimate each aright.' l 



Postscript. — Since the foregoing passage was printed, I have 

 performed the melancholy task of disinterring the remains of a 

 Euddy Sheldrake (Tadorna rutila) from the bottom of a manure 

 pit. This fine bird had been shot on the river Wampool, July 

 18, 1892, and thrown away as valueless. It was one of a pair, 

 and undoubtedly of wild origin. 



1 Robert Browning, Poetical Works, vol. iii. p. 67. 



