22 



NEST=POKING. 



S. r.. MOSLK V. 



I SHOLLD like to enter a protest against what has become far 

 too common a practice: I allude to the photographing of birds' 

 nests. I am led to make these remarks from seeing the 

 photograph of a nightingale's nest in your last issue, and the 

 statement that it had been stolen. Is there any wonder 

 when we know the number of visits made to it by the various 

 ''Naturalists?" The place must have been trampled down. 

 Scores of birds have been driven away from their nests by such 

 unwarrantable intrusion. For a man to wait five hours keeping 

 a rare bird off its partly incubated eggs, in order to get a 

 photograph of the bird going on, is worse than taking the eggs. 

 And what good is the photograph when taken? In the print 

 in your journal we cannot tell whether the eggs are round or 

 square, the material of the nest might be anything, and not a 

 single plant in the vicinity can be identified with certainty. 

 The photograph is not needed. We know already far more 

 about a nightingale's nest than any photograph can tell us, and 

 for public instruction one of the South Kensington cases is, out 

 of sight, superior to any photograph. If these men really 

 wanted a photograph, why did they not go where nightingales 

 are plentiful, and where the driving away of one pair would have 

 done no great harm, instead of badgering away perhaps the 

 only pair which favoured East Yorkshire with a visit? If we 

 are naturalists let us try to protect Nature from ruthless 

 ravages. 



[W'ilhoiil sugfg-cstiiijJ- for a moiiu'iit that our l^radford frifiuls were in any 

 way Ki'i'ty c*f '^he general cliartifes made by Mr. IVIosle}', we certainly think 

 that there is something to be said on this question from both sides]. — V.V. 



A New Census Catalogne of British Hepatics has been published 

 b\ the Mnss lCxrliant;c C'iul). The C'alaioi^uc is l)ased on the system of 

 classirii ation ado|3tod by Schillner in iMiglci- and I'rantl's ' Die Natiir- 

 lichcn IMlan/.cnfamilien,' and was c(>m])il('d bv Mr. Symers M. Macvicar. 

 The Rev. C. 11. Waddell has done the dislriljiition for Ireland and Mr. W. 

 Ingham for (ireat Britain. This is the lirst time the distribution of 

 Ili-patics has been attem])led accortling to the iij Motanical \'ice-Counties 

 t>f (ireat Britain and the 40 of Ireland. Cojjies of this valuable Catalogue 

 may be had from Mr. W. Ingham, B.A., York, at gd. each, postage 

 prcp.-iid. 



Naturalist, 



