BY GEORGE ROOPER, AUTHOR OF 'flood, field, AND FOREST;' 'TALES AND SKETCHES; BOD HALC IAN LONDON: ROBERT HARDWICKE, 192, PICCADILLY, W. 1876. 203. f. 527 PREFACE. I ASSUME that the preface to a book, if read at all, is read after the perusal of the book itself;—it is assuredly so written. It seems therefore to savour of impertinence, or at least of a waste of the reader's time, to obtrude a long detail of the author's intentions upon one who is at the time in a position to judge how far he has succeeded, or otherwise, in carrying them out. In the following pages, as in all my other little works, my object has been to impart such knowledge on the subjects of sporting and natural history as I believe myself to have acquired. Some time ago I resided, during a portion of each year, in a wild corner of County Mayo, where I had purchased a tract of five thousand acres, and where I rented, for thirty pounds a year, on a long lease, the shooting over upwards of thirteen thousand acres more, and which I enjoyed until Irish shootings rose in value, when I was informed that my lessor had no title whatever to the property. During this period I had many opportunities of studying the habits and customs of the "natives," and I have embodied, in the guise of a partly imaginative narrative, not a few of my personal reminiscences. My former books have, I am proud to say, received as much praise as I could desire, and far more than I ever expected or even hoped for, from young people of both sexes, and it is to them more especially that I now commend my "MONTH IN MAYO." |