Northern News^ 



one note Fr//:? seems to constitute its whole vocabular}^ The 

 language off the Blue Titmouse is not easily translated into 

 English. On^the other hand, no one could confound the sweet 

 continuous twittering song of the Swallow with its ' chissick ' 

 alarm note. 



The grating call of the Corn Crake is included in the time- 

 table of song — the bird also has other notes than its ' crake/ 

 and is not the '.'crake ' as musical as the voice of the Grasshopper 

 Warbler P 



A movement is on foot for the provision of a local historical museum 

 for IManchester. 



We regret to record the death of Mr. J. T. Carrington, v.-hich occurred 

 on ]March 5th, at Combe IMartin, in Devonshire. He was born in 1846, 

 and was a v/ell-known entomologist. He will be perhaps better known 

 however, from the fact that from 1893 he edited ' Science Gossip,' until 

 that journal ceased in 1902. Our entomological friends have also recently 

 lost another worker — Mr. Herbert Goss, who died in Februarv. 



Mr. E. Jacob, of York, draws attention (in ' Country Side '), to the fact 

 that ' From the list of the British Association's report of butterflies occur- 

 ring in the vicinity of York, it appears that quite half-a-dozen species 

 have been exterminated in that locality of late years, and among them 

 the marbled white, formerly plentiful within ten miles, the large tortoise- 

 shell, two species of fritillary, silver-studded blue, the wall butterfly, and 

 the speckled wood, besides the comma, which is now extremely rare.' 



A new monthly ' Natural Histor}^ ' Magazine made its appearance 

 on All Fool's Day. It speaks very largely of the weekly paper, to which 

 it owes its origin, and which, is it possible, it may some day supercede ? 

 The most prominent items are the advertisements, which refer to hats, 

 pure milk for babies, face-cream, soap, dog mixture, chicken meal, weeding 

 lawns, tea, coffee, cocoa, mineral waters, and other appropriate subjects. 

 In fact, the ' Natural History ' flavour of the advertisements may be taken 

 as an index of the kind of ' natural history ' in the new publication. There 

 appears to be a medical page, a cookery page, a gardening page, a live-stock 

 page, etc., and we observe that the word ' mammal,' to which the weekly 

 father of this weakly child took so deep an objection, is here used with 

 impunity. Amongst the articles we notice such absorbing and scientific 

 topics as ' The great Cuckoo problem ' ; ' Do Mummy Seeds Germinate ? ' ; 

 ' Water finding with a twig ' ; ' Village sayings ' ; ' Cats I have known ' ; 

 ' Flowers in Egypt,' etc., etc. An early article, of course, deals with ' Our- 

 selves.' In this we learn that ' Painstaking observers of nature have not, 

 as a rule., any itching for publicity ; and of no branch of human knowledge 

 can it be truly said than of nature-lore in Britain that " those who write 

 do not know, and those who know do not write ! " ' That is worth reading 

 a second time ! And what do we find ? The first article in the book is 

 written by ' E. K. R.' A few pages further on and the same individtial 

 writes on ' The Meanings of Markings,' and there are a dozen or so of the 

 familiar irritating, and at times quite unnecessary notes, in square 

 brackets, under the signature ' Ed.' There are, in addition to all these, 

 other parts, anonymously written, which appear to have the ' style ' of 

 the same — shall we say ' Painstaking observer of Nature ' — or are we to 

 accept the dictum of ' Ourselves,' and assume that ' those who write do 

 not know ' ? No, the new INIagazine will not kill all the natural histor}^ 

 botanical, zoological, horticultural, medical, culinary, farming, and adver- 

 tising journals at present existing. But what about the ' weakly weekly ' ? 



Naturalists 



