Notes and Extracts 



353 



Hazlitt, in his Table talk, records : — 



" Mr. Cobbett speaks almost as well as he writes. The 

 only time I ever saw him he seemed to me a very pleasant 

 man, easy of access, affable, clear-headed, simple and mild 

 in his manner, deliberate and unruffled in his speech, though 

 some of his expressions were not very qualified. His figure 

 is tall and portly. He has a good sensible face, rather full, 

 with little grey eyes, a hard square forehead, a ruddy 

 complexion, with hair grey or powdered." — Quoted from Miss 

 Wotton's "Word Portraits." 



NOTES AND EXTRACTS. 

 Colour-sense in Birds. — There may be seen in the local 

 collection in our Haslemere Museum a hedge-sparrow's nest, 

 the materials of which consist largely of fragments of coloured 

 wool, mostly red, from a carpet which had been beaten near 

 the nesting site. It was found in Haslemere, three summers 

 ago. 



In Science Gossip, 1867, p. 275, there is an allusion to a 

 hedge-sparrow's nest which " was made in the usual manner, 

 but in the place of moss, &c, it was composed of woollen 

 fibre of various colours, red being the most prominent, evidently 

 a portion of an old carpet." It is obvious that this may prove 

 rather the bird's love of wool than preference for colour. 

 There have, however, been recorded from time to time facts 

 which seem to imply that birds have some colour-sense. Dr. 

 McDougal, writing in 1903, remarked that he had seen a 

 robin's nest built of similar materials, and suggested that 

 " if any readers, having gardens where birds build nests, 

 would, at the suitable season, scatter about in those gardens 

 bits of wool of different colours, but similar in shape and 

 substance, they may arrive at valuable facts regarding the 

 colour vision and colour preferences of birds." 



The Roadside Planting of Fruit Trees was discussed at the 

 International Congress on Arboriculture of 1900, and a resolu- 

 tion was passed to the effect — 



