A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 23 



with much complacency. Years hence will come 

 endeavours to reproduce lost features one can fancy 

 the planting of woods by local authorities and sowing 

 of grass-seeds in the midst of interlacing slum-suburbs ; 

 even as they plant to-day their little lime-tree rows 

 and lay out a be-pathed desert by the name of 

 " Bink's Park " in the congested districts of Balham 

 or Hackney. The typical "open space" of modern 

 Greater London is such a dread production that one 

 may well wish to conserve examples of native soil 

 already existing. I wish that some part of the 

 present care for ancient monuments could be ex- 

 tended to modern landscape, and that naturalists 

 would expand their right solicitude for birds' eggs 

 and ferns into protection for whole heaths, woods, 

 hillsides, and rivers. It might be possible to dedicate 

 some parcels of typical country as museums for- 

 bidding new buildings and extension of trades 

 therein, and rigorously guarding not only the fauna 

 and flora, but the mere beauty of grass and heather, 

 rock and pool. One such natural museum might 

 be made between Derwentwater, Scafell, and Helvel- 

 lyn ; one on Dartmoor ; another about the upper 

 Thames, enclosing Oxford ; another in the Fens ; 

 and certainly one including part of the South Downs 

 and the Weald say, within a radius of twelve 



