The Bird and Insects' Post Office

Frontispiece.

Author of The Farmer's Boy, Rural Tales , &c. &c.
WITH THIRTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON AND CO. GRIFFITH AND FARRAN: ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD, LONDON.
The Bird and Insects' Post-Office was projected and written by Robert Bloomfield, author of the Farmer's Boy, &c., excepting Letters VIII., X., XI., and XVI. by his eldest son, Charles. It was the author's intention to publish it uniformly with his other juvenile work, the History of Little Davy's New Hat, but he did not live to do so, and it was therefore included in his literary Remains , published in 1824—a year after the poet's death—in two volumes, price twelve shillings. Its circulation, in consequence, has been extremely limited, its form of publication preventing its introduction to children; for this reason, and because I think it would be a pity for it to be shut up for ever in a dusty old volume from the little ones, for whom it was written, I have sent it forth in the form originally intended for it to assume.
The original manuscript, in the author's autograph, I recently presented to the Trustees of the British Museum.
WALTER BLOOMFIELD.