June 1, 1896.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



I:i5 



occurred in spite of geographical conditions, e.//., the 

 establishment of a gunpowder factory in an agricultural 

 district, or the tunnelling of a hill by a new railway. 

 Many of the more interesting relations to be discussed in 

 this description are undergoing change, and unless they 

 are soon studied and recorded the value of the work will 

 be much reduced. 



(;■) flliistrations. — A sketch-map on the scale of, say, ten 

 miles to the inch would be given, showing the area of nine 

 sheets of the oae-inch map, including the eight sheets 

 which touch the sheet under consideration. A small 

 index map on the outside cover could show the sheets 

 contained in the whole country (England, Scotland, or 

 Ireland, as the case might be). One or two characteristic 

 profiles on a natural scale might be given, and a selection 

 of views of characteristic scenery taken from a carefully 

 chosen standpoint. It might be found possible in a few 

 cases to give characteristic type-portraits of the people, 

 and illustrations of the leading industries of the district. 



(/>•) Bihlioip-aphij. — All the books, articles, or references 

 dealing with places referred to in the sheet would be re- 

 corded, so that a student could at once refer to all available 

 original sources. 



Probable Magxitlde, Dukation, and Utility of the 

 Suggested Work. 



The land area of the British Islands, excluding the 

 Channel Isles, is estimated at one hundred and twenty 

 thousand nine hundred and four square miles, which 

 would correspond to five hundred and sixty sheets con- 

 taining two hundred and sixteen square miles each, the 

 size of the English one-inch sheets. On account of the 

 irregularities of coast-hne, the one-inch map of England 

 contains three hundred and sixty sheets, that of Ireland 

 two hundred and five sheets, and that of Scotland one 

 hundred and thirty-one sheets of double size, corresponding 

 to two hundred and sixty-two. The total number is thus 

 equivalent to eight hundred and twenty-seven sheets of 

 the usual size (eighteen inches by twelve) ; but of these 

 twenty-seven at least are, so far as one can judge from the 

 index maps, entirely blank, leaving eight hundred which 

 would have to be considered. Of the eight hundred there 

 are at least two hundred and fifty-eight which contain 

 less than half their area of land surface. However, it 

 seems to me that the advantages of having the memoirs 

 in the form of a pamphlet corresponding to each sheet, 

 and numbered in the same way, would be sufiicient to 

 make it worth while to face the prospect of eight hundred 

 separate booklets. There might, in fact, be rather more, 

 as the special sheets combined out of several to show the 

 environs of important towns would naturally be included. 

 The little books would be partly statistical and partly 

 descriptive, and their aim would be to present the 

 information in the most concise and systematic form. 

 Possibly, wherever a sheet contained less than a certain 

 area — say fifty square miles — of laud, it would be found 

 convenient to reckon it as part of its next neighbour. 

 If the memoirs were printed in royal octavo form, the size 

 of each might vary from eight to thirty-two, or possibly, 

 in rare cases, to forty- eight pages. This is little more 

 than a guess, but it illustrates the scale on which I think 

 the work should be undertaken. The average length 

 might be about twenty-four pages, which would give 

 nineteen thousand two hundred pages for the whole work ; 

 this would correspond to twenty volumes of nine hundred 

 and sixty pages. If the work were undertaken with a 

 Eufficient staff to turn out f^n average number of forty 

 memoirs in a year, it would require twenty years for its 

 completion ; an increased staff would allow of the work 

 being more quickly completed. 



At the meeting when this scheme was discussed general 

 approval of the principle was expressed by such authorities 

 as General Sir Charles W. ^^^'ilson, late Director-General 

 of the Ordnance Survey ; Colonel J. Farquharson, the 

 present Director-General : Mr. Clements E. Markham, 

 President of the Royal Geographical Society ; Mr H. J, 

 Mackinder. Reader in Geography at the Uni\ersity of 

 Oxford; Mr. E. G. Ravenstein ; and Sir Benjamin Stone, 

 M.P. There was, however, considerable divergence of 

 opinion as to the proper unit of description, the majority 

 considering that a poUtical unit — the parish, hundred, or 

 county — ought to be adopted. 



The advantages of the map-sheet as a unit stUl outweigh 

 those of the parish or county, in my mind, for a work on 

 the scale and with the object that I have proposed. Once 

 the description of the country is complete on the rigidly 

 uniform plan suggested, it would be a very easy matter to 

 prepare a series of county memoirs each of which could be 

 worked up from the special point of view most important 

 in the individual case. 



The council of the Royal Geographical Society has 

 appointed a committee to consider the practicability of 

 undertaking the description of a specimen area as a sample 

 of the whole and as a test of the character of the projected 

 work. The complete work would prove very expensive for 

 any private society, and from its national importance 

 should, if undertaken at all, be carried out at the cost of the 

 nation, under such expert supervision as would ensure 

 continuity and steady progress. Whether this conld be 

 best attained by entrusting the work to the organization of 

 the Ordnance Survey or to the Royal Geographical Society, 

 or to a special Government department for geographical 

 work, is a question that might be very profitably discussed. 

 A geographical department would be a very useful adjunct 

 to the scientific equipment of the Government, and could 

 be utilized in many ways, not the least important being 

 the co-ordination of the geographical data already copiously 

 collected by Government departments, the work of whicli 

 at present remains isolated and unprofitiblc. 



PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE IN THE NESTS 

 AND EGGS OF BIRDS. 



By Harry F. Witheehy. 



IX a former article* a few cases of protective resemblance 

 in birds were dealt with, and the accompanying 

 illustrations furnish us with two further examples 

 of the subject. Both engravings ;.re from beautiful 

 photographs by Mr. G. W. Burn Murdoch. Tho 

 one of a long-tailed tit's nest is an excellent example of 

 protective resemblance in the nest of a bird, while that of 

 the oyster catcher's eggs is a good illustration of the 

 subject in the eggs of a bird. 



The long-tailed tit's nest is particularly difficult to 

 distinguish from its surroundings, even in the photograph, 

 where only the immediate surroundings are taken in. It 

 may be well to brielly describe the builder of the nest 

 before we go on to the nest itself. 



Tho long-tailed tit (Aneditln catulatu) is a member of 

 ihe family rmiiltr, which contains some of our smallest 

 and at the same time best-known birds, which may be 

 classed amongst the happiest and most lively. The 

 long-tailed tit is in reality a very tiny bird, although 

 its tail, which is longer than its body, gives it the 

 appearance of being larger than it really is. The bird 



• 5<if Knowikiioi", AFaroh, ISnC. 



