THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



•211 



die body may do very well for Nocture, but the wings of Ditjrni and Geo- 

 metry are so much broader, that when this is done with them the costal 

 margin is thrown too far forward. But this is all a matter of taste, and you 

 will acquire it by degrees. Eor your own cabinet you can, of course, please 

 ■yourself, but your duplicates must be set to please other people. 



Returning Postal Boxes. 



You know the Bishop's definition of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy. " Ortho- 

 doxy/' said he, " is my doxy, Heterodoxy is the doxy of other people." So 

 with postal boxes. There are, no doubt, good and satisfactory reasons why I 

 do not send back a box by return of post, but I look for mine to be returned 

 promptly all the same, and grumble in my own mind at their delay. Don't 

 you find it so ? There is quite an excuse for A's box being yet in your pos- 

 session, but B. ought to have sent back yours. True, he was ill, or said he 

 was, but he should have contrived to return your box first. Now, did not 

 some such thought pass through your mind ? There are boxes on my desk 

 that I dare not say how long they have lain there, and that undoubtedly 

 ought to have been returned, but don't you know that " What's sauce for 

 the goose is sauce for the gander " is not true when we happen to be the 

 .gander ourselves. Nevertheless, return postal boxes promptly, and don't mind 

 the bad example set by those who ought and do know better. 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



The Little Gull. — A specimen of this rare bird (Larus minutus), was 

 shot on Whitburn sands, near Sunderland, on Saturday, August 28th. It 

 is not unfrequently met with on the Durham and Northumberland coast, but 

 has never been seen in the summer plumage. The earliest previous record 

 (Hancock's Birds of Northumberland and Durham) is 2nd September. — John 

 E. Robson, Hartlepool. 



Albino Flowers. — I have noticed a larger number of white varieties 

 of wild flowers this year, than I ever remember seeing before, including two 

 species I had not previously met with. The species include Columbine ; Herb 

 Robert ; Rest-harrow, of which in one place nearly all the plants had white 

 flowers, and it was the most abundant plant there; Hyacinth, there were 

 numerous spikes of pale blue flowers, as well as many pure white ; Primrose, 

 which 1 had never seen white before ; Viper's Bugloss, this plant appearing 

 in pale blue, violet and white, as well as the normal colour. I also saw a 

 very pale flower of the Mealy or Bird's-eye primrose [Primula farinosa.) 



