the poor gathering in Wolmer Forest the sticks and 

 twigs dropped by the rooks in building their nests ; 

 we see them claiming the ''lop and top" when the 

 big trees are cut. Indeed, the human touches, the 

 human figures here and there in White's pages add 

 much to the interest. The glimpses we get of his 

 own goings and comings — we wish there were more 

 of them. We should like to know what took him to 

 London during that great snow-storm of January, 

 1776, or how he got there, inasmuch as the roads 

 were so blocked by the snow that the carriages from 

 Bath with their fine ladies on their way to attend 

 the Queen's birthday were unable to get through. 



The ladies fretted, and offered large rewards to 

 labourers if they would shovel them a track to Lon- 

 don, but the relentless heaps of snow w^ere too bulky 

 to be removed." The parson found the city bedded 

 deep in snow, and so noiseless by reason of it that 



it seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of deso- 

 lation." 



When one reads the writers of our own day upon 

 rural England and the wild life there, he finds that 

 they have not the charm of the Selborne naturalist ; 

 mainly, I think, because they go out with deliberate 

 intent to write up nature. They choose their 

 theme ; the theme does not choose them. They love 

 the birds and flowers for the literary effects they can 

 produce out of them. It requires no great talent to 

 go out in the fields or woods and describe in grace- 



ix 



