3184 Tue ZooLocist—Avueust, 1872. 
If the Channel Islands are “left out in the cold” by both French and 
English naturalists, it is easy, to understand why their inhabitants should 
wish for some rule under which their productions might be included in 
works on British Natural History. A simple solution of all difficulties would 
be, as it seems to me, for British naturalists always to include the Channel 
Islands in their works, under a title analogous to that of Mr. Blackwall’s 
work, ‘Birds (or what not) of Great Britain, Ireland, and the Channel 
Islands.’ In this way the word “ British” would retain its legitimate 
signification, and no one would be misled.—O. P.-Cambridge ; Bloaworth, 
July 4, 1872. 
(1 am truly obliged to Mr. Cambridge for this explanation: I most 
certainly accept the “ simple solution” Mr. Cambridge suggests of “ British 
naturalists including the Channel Islands in their works.” The botanists, 
so far as I'know, have done so already, and the plan seems to have met 
with general acceptance, and therefore, as regards the literature of British 
Natural History, there appears no great difficulty about birds; but how 
about the collector of insects? any partial practice, as that now adopted as 
regards plants, surely is indefensible, and the application of the practice to 
insects would involve the preparation of entirely new lists, catalogues and 
cabinets.—EHdward Newman. | 
Are the Channel Islands British?—Will you allow me to add a few lines 
to the correspondence which has appeared in the last two numbers of the 
‘ Zoologist’ on the above question? It appears to me that anyone speaking 
as a naturalist, and wishing to use accurate terms, will call an animal ora 
plant British which is indigenous to the geographical group of the British 
Islands. To ascertain what this geographical group consists of it is only 
necessary to look at the map of Europe, where we find two large islands, 
Great Britain and Ireland, side by side, and numerous smaller islands at 
various distances from the coasts of the large islands, but always nearer to 
some part of those coasts than to any part of the continent, forming, in spite 
of the aberrant Shetlands, a fairly-defined group conveniently designated as 
Britain. But this group does not include the Channel Islands, which are 
British politically only (and our question is not of politics, but of Natural 
History), for by nature, and according to Geography, they are as much 
French as the Scilly Islands and Orkneys are British, so that their natural 
productions must, as I think, be assigned to the French province. It can 
only be the desire to magnify the zoological and botanical treasures of this 
country, and to enrich their cabinets, which tempts English collectors 
arbitrarily, and without regard to the geographical claims of France, to 
annex the Channel Islands to the British group.—Clermont; 35, Hill 
Street, Berkeley Square, July 10, 1872. 
Egg Colleetions—I know of no substitute that will answer the purpose 
and look so well as cotton-wool; of course its colour is optional. I prefer 
