Excerpt from Our Reptiles and Batrachians: A Plain and Easy Account of the Lizards, Snakes, Newts, Toads, Frogs and Tortoises Indigenous to Great Britain It may cause surprise to some who are not amongst my most intimate friends, that my name should be attached to a volume on any other branch of Natural History than one which is in some way associated with the Vegetable Kingdom. To these it may be necessary to explain that I have only returned on this occasion to an "old love," long deserted for the fascinating charms of "moulds and mildews." In more youthful days I bird's-nested, caught butterflies and worried reptiles, with all the pertinacity of youth, and amongst all these pursuits acquired a taste for the study of our native birds, reptiles, and insects, which led to my first lessons in the classificatory sciences. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.