Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society XVII.djvu/13

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Preface.
xiii

his excellent volume of songs and stories in the Folk-lore Publications of 1907, and to the writers of nursery tales, Mrs. Milne-Home, Pamela Smith, and Mrs. W. E. Wilson (Wona). I take this opportunity also to acknowledge most gratefully the many courtesies for which I am indebted during my visits to the island. I particularly wish to thank Professor Frank Cundall for his advice and cooperation, and for the use of the invaluable West India library connected with the Jamaica Institute in Kingston where I was able to consult books not easily to be found in library collections. To the Hon. and Mrs. Coke-Kerr, to Mrs. Harry Farquharson and to the Rev. and Mrs. Ashton I am gratefully indebted for many courtesies in the task of finding reliable native informants. To these informants themselves,—to Simeon Falconer, William Forbes, George Parkes, and a score of others I owe thanks for their ready response to my interest. In America also I wish to thank Mrs. Elsie Clews Parsons for suggestions as to method and for the use of her valuable bibliography and Mrs. Louise Dennis Hand for help with Spanish collections, and to express my grateful obligations to Professor Franz Boas for his patient editing and valuable bibliographical suggestions.

The Folk-lore Foundation
Vassar College
April, 1924.
Martha Warren Beckwith