242 WRITING AND CONSERVATISM 



line, and the other is the misspelling of Rossitten, for 

 which I must hold myself guilty in my MS. 



B.'s suggestions don't amount to much, and if it 

 would gratify him might all be adopted — though I 

 should shorten his " what may at present be termed " 

 into " apparently," that being vague enough for any- 

 thing. I dislike " commence " to do a thing — what is 

 the harm in " begin," a word which is going out of 

 fashion so fast that the next revision of the Old Testa- 

 ment is likely to open with the words " In the com- 

 mencement," etc ! 



I can never see why in serious writing Daws should 

 be nicknamed Jack. The word did well enough of 

 itself for Shakespeare, and naturalists do not generally 

 write of Tom Tits. Jack-Snipe is quite another matter, 

 and there the prefix has a real meaning, though it may 

 be of obscure origin.* 



Being endowed with a very highly critical faculty, 

 Newton was naturally somewhat intolerant of the less 

 considered judgments of others. Among those who 

 came in for his especial condemnation were (often very 

 undeservedly) writers of "popular" Natural History 

 and the reviewers of Natural History books. 



For a long while it has been the burthen of my 

 song that we have more Natural History Journals than 

 the country can afibrd, with the result that the numer- 

 osity is not only injurious to the Journals themselves 

 but to Natural History itself, as it lowers the tone of 

 the contributions. I wish I had friendly advice to give 

 you, but I hardly know what can be done. If you, or 

 any other man in your position (should such there be), 

 were to buy up one or two of these miserable periodicals 

 which have no excuse for their existence, I fear the 

 only effect would be that successors, still less worthy of 

 support, would be started; and yet I know nothing 

 else that is possible. 



* Letter to F. Knubley, August 16, 1903. 



