INTRODUCTION. 
IVEN the free air which, with its buoyant and 
life-giving power, roams in sweetness and 
purity over mountain and plain, hill-side, meadow, 
and stream, and wherever the free gifts of Nature, 
far away from the habitations of man, abound in 
spontaneous luxuriance. Given the sight of a river 
as it rolls through the valley from its mountain 
home, fresh from dews and vapours, unsullied by 
contact with towns and cities ; or of a streamlet 
whose smaller volume winds its silvery thread 
through the moorland. Given the sight and sound 
of the gurgling brook, as it babbles and sparkles 
over stones and shallows, meandering by copse and 
through mead. Given the wild paths of the wood 
through which to wander free and untrammelled, 
