see such sources of innocent and, at the same time, exalted pleasure so much neglected, or rather quite unsuspected, even by people who linger lovingly over roses and camellias. I had to learn the little I know of trees under very disheartening circumstances. Nobody appeared to know or care what this or that tree was. I had dreamt, as an almost impossible delight, of the publishing, by some expert, of accurate, tinted delineations of leaves; and your illustrations are almost equal to Nature. Since I have had your book (only in the beginning of this year) I often bring home a score or so of different leaves, and sit down with " OUR WOODLAND TREES" for the delight of examining their dainty minutia.'

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It is unquestionably in the dainty minutia of leaves that their charm lies, and it is also the dainty minutiæ' which are altogether unobserved and unappreciated by those who simply look at foliage in the mass. Beautiful and impressive as masses of colour appear-arranged and shaded and subject to the gradations and contrasts of wild Nature-there is greater beauty and more elaboration of loveliness apparent, on

close examination, in the parts which contribute to the whole; for unless closely and carefully examined the especial beauty of these parts is found to be lost in the general effect.

But the beauty of colour in autumnal leaves is made up, so to speak, of many more elements than is the beauty of the same leaves in spring or summer. As in the mass the later aspect of foliage is more varied and striking than its aspect in spring or summer, it would seem that there should, of necessity, be greater variety in the parts which contribute to the general effect. And so it is in fact. In the mere shades of what is roughly described as 'green,' there is almost infinite variety and far greater charm than the unobservant even suspect. What to the eye, at a distance, seems absolute uniformity of colour is really made up of a large number of insensible gradations. Most of these can be easily seen on close examination. Apart from these differences, which require a certain degree of study to discover, there are the much more broadly apparent changes of hue produced by age. The tender, glossy, almost golden, leaf of spring merges in

sensibly, through many changing stages, into the deep green of its summer hue. But insensible as is the passage from one stage to another the contrast between the earliest and the latest summer shade is very marked and striking.

It is the varieties of hue and colour on the same leaf that give the striking character to autumnal foliage so apparent when it is closely examined. The effect is doubtless due to the manifestations of the preliminary stages of decay; and yet it is not strictly decay, as will be presently shown, which produces the picturesque changes of colour in the early stages of what is called leaf discolouration. But to whatever cause the change is due, the effect is often singularly beautiful. The normal, or what has previously been the uniform, green is lightened here and there perhaps by varying shades of the same colour, and contrasted in other places by distinct patches or spots, or it may be lines, of entirely different colour-yellow, red, or purple.

We have said that the peculiar colour markings of autumnal leaves, though indicative of approaching decay, are not, strictly speaking, what is

understood by decay, or at any rate decay of the kind which, when once commenced, must inevitably lead to a disintegration of parts: for not only can the course and progress of this discolouration be arrested-in the case of most leaves -at any stage, but the effects of the process up to the point reached can be retained and perpetuated by careful management-that is to say, by taking means to alter the conditions which are necessary in order to continue, or merge, mere discolouration into actual decay. It is this possibility which has enabled the Author to obtain the subjects for the coloured illustrations of this volume.

Illustrations of autumnal leaves in this country could, necessarily, be only typical, for notwithstanding the comparative limitation of the extent of our flora the variations of autumnal colouring alone are almost endless. If it had been intended in this volume merely to give the colour of each autumnal leaf when it had reached its final stage of colouring, the task would have been easy and few colours would have been required. But it is in the early autumnal tinting that the charm of

colour lies, and it is then that there is the greatest wealth of contrasts. in wild Nature. Hence, in representing, so to speak, in these pages, this especial aspect of Autumn, it has been sought to give the most typical and prominent of autumnal leaves, and these will be found figured in the coloured plates.

The coloured figures have, as already intimated, been copied from Nature-the leaves which they represent having been collected and arranged by the Author, then photographed, and so imitated as to give not merely their natural tints, but an exact representation-no less indeed than a fac-simile-of their characteristic venation. This question of the venation of leaves is one that deserves, from its interest and importance, much more attention than it has hitherto obtained. The mere outline of a leaf-though the feature which more immediately strikes the eye-is by no means its only important feature. But artists in general, even when drawing individual leaves, have been content to give little more than the outline. If the reader who has been accustomed to notice only this most salient