Aileen Aroon, a Memoir With Other Tales of Faithful Friends and Favourites

Prefaces are not always necessary; but when an author has either to acknowledge a courtesy, or to make an apology, then a preface becomes a duty. I have to do both. Firstly, then, as regards acknowledgment. I have endeavoured in this book to give sketches—as near to nature as a line could be drawn—of a few of my former friends and favourites in the animal world, and many of these have appeared from time to time in the magazines and periodicals, to which I have the honour to contribute. I have to thank, then, the good old firm of Messrs Chambers, of Edinburgh, for courteously acceding to my request to be allowed to republish “My Cabin Mates and Bedfellows,” and “Blue-Jackets’ Pets,” from their world-known Journal. I have also to thank Messrs Cassell and Co., London, for the re-appearance herein of several short stories I wrote for their charming magazine Little Folks, on the pages of which, by the way, the sun never sets