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eater’s compartment, and vice versa , and again there will be

lamentation and mourning. It is wonderful, but at the same

time exasperating, to find how small a hole will do the deed.


4. Provide for the mice periodically. They will come.

Traps are little good. Provide a delicate repast of bread liberally

buttered, and with some Batty’s vermin killer on the top. Put

the bread and butter in a small box cage, securely fasten it down

with your wife’s best bonnet pin, and in the morning the mice

will be like Sennacherib’s army—all dead corpses.



CORRESPONDENCE.



A PROPOSAL TO EXTEND THE SCOPE OF THE MAGAZINE.


Sir, —You have published five letters commenting on my proposal,

and the authors of four of them are strongly adverse to it. I am not

discouraged by this reception of my suggestions, because I expected it.

The Magazine in its present form is fairly satisfactory to our present circle

of readers. The object of the proposed alterations is to extend that circle

by adding to it many whom it fails to interest at present. If the members

prefer a small Magazine with a still smaller circulation, let us continue

rigidly on the present lines — personally I dislike stagnation, and it having

been proved that the Magazine cannot be much extended with its existing

circulation, and that the circulation cannot be increased while the subject-

matter remains so restricted, I urge the expediency of endeavouring to

overcome the strong antipathy which some of us appear to feel for all

living forms except “foreign and British Birds,” and to open our pages to

the discussion of (a) (1) rare mammals, reptiles, and fishes, and (2) Canaries.


All my critics, except Mr. Phillipps, confuse my two proposals

strangely. There seems to me a good deal of difference between rare

mammals, etc. on the one hand and Canaries on the other, and I expected

that some would bless one proposal and condemn the other. But 110—it

matters nothing to the ladies and gentlemen whether a creature be fish,

flesh, or fowl — so long as it is not a “ foreign or British bird ” they will have

none of it. I can’t help feeling that some of us are rather narrow, and

wanting in sympathy with hobbies which differ very little from our own.


Dr. Butler’s letter consists of prophecies, and is not wanting in that

positiveness which is a characteristic of prophetic literature. Nothing but

a trial of 1113' proposals can prove or disprove his predictions. I11 the



(a) To my mind the chief objection to the first of Mr. Fillmer’s proposals is that we

should have to change the name of our Magazine, which would be a very great pity. I am

perfectly sure there are a great many aviculturists, who have never heard of the Magazine,

who will join us when they do hear, which they will do when the paper is properly adver¬

tised, as I hope it will be before long.


The admission of Canaries I most strongly object to for several reasons : it would be

the thin end of the wedge which would admit all other “ fancy ” rubbish ; it would cause

all our most scientific members to leave the Society in disgust; whereas our chief aim

should be to make our paper more worth}' of their support. We should be on the high

road to turning our Magazine into a common “ fancy ” paper.—D. S.-S.



