BENONI: NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 211 
future work! Sidbury Hill stands, on or just beyond the family 
property of the late Sir John Astley, of sporting fame, and this 
suggests an incident of observation which only required an accurate 
note to have made it of value. Late one day he shot a wood pigeon 
at Elsham, in Lincolnshire, with such a distended crop that he 
could not help noticing it. Opening it, he found it not only 
remarkably full, but was also struck by the number of the species of 
These were sown in a flowerpot of the largest size and 
placed in the forcing-house. A full and varied crop of the weeds of 
our stubbles was the reward of his care, but no botanist was called 
in to name the species and work out their numerical relation, and so 
field naturalist knows to his cost. What days and weeks have we all 
spent fruitlessly on the look-out for something new, when it was 
only our own stupidity. which prevented us seeing what was just 
distribution than land plants, we had to visit a deep unfrozen spring 
twenty times in the great frost of 1895 before the bright green 
foliage struck our mind’s eye, and it flashed into our vacant organ 
that the deep warm springs in the north, and by contrast the deep 
cool springs of the south, could keep an uniform temperature in 
a limited area and preserve a flora and its attendant life, which 
would become a centre of distribution should the climate change to 
greater warmth or cold. We must brighten and polish up our 
faculties in the field if we would find plenty of material worthy of 
our note-books. An unknown quantity of unobserved connections 
lie around us the moment we leave our doors ; if we do not find 
some one else will. 
How to make notes is our next point. If you have not invented 
4 plan—a good one, mind you, of your own—try this one; it is 
perhaps the simplest and most effective yet discovered. We all have 
our favourite books, even when we get better; Bell’s Quadrupeds, 
2nd ed., and Yarrell’s Birds, 4th ed., are ours. Now, for example, 
you want to make a note of the long-tailed field mouse. Take 
_ a half sheet of ordinary note-paper and write the number of Bell's 
Page 293 in the left-hand corner, then the English or Latin name, or 
if you like, opposite. Underline these names, and in the right- 
hand corner add the figure 1 to signify this is the first page devoted 
to species. Then make your notes, carefully recording place, 
date, and fact, or anything you consider important to notice. In 
vl oat sketch the underlined parts are reproduced in #falics. 
