30 
NATURE NOTES. 
stay — the weather warm, food abundant, and their fellows the 
Swallows and Martins enjoying themselves and remaining for 
another month or more. 
The question whether there is a continuing necessity for the 
Swifts to come northward to breed, or whether it is only the 
retention of a custom which was once a necessity in different 
climatic conditions, will probably not be answered until the 
birds have been observed in their African home. If they all 
leave, that would be strong, though not conclusive, evidence of 
an existing necessity. But if some stay and nest in their usual 
haunts, the necessity must have ceased, and the force of habit 
alone brings the birds over to us. 
These remarks on migration apply, of course, also to the 
Swallows, and, to a certain extent, to all the soft-billed summer 
migrants. Aubrey Edwards. 
(To be continued.) 
THREE NEW BOOKS ON FOLK-LORE. 
The Hand-hook of Folk-lore, edited by George Lawrence Gomme, Director of 
the Folk-lore Society. London: David Nutt. [8vo, limp cloth, pp. vii., 193. 
Price 2s. 6d.] 
The Folk-lore Society has many points of contact with the Selborne Society. 
The love of Nature includes within it an appreciation of the numerous and varied 
fables, traditions, sayings and beliefs which have clustered round natural objects, 
and which are comprised under the convenient term “ Folk-lore.” The import- 
ance of recording these various items of popular belief, and of correlating them 
with traditions in other lands has but lately been recognised ; and the establish- 
ment of the Folk-lore Society some twelve years since was the first attempt at 
anything like a systematic bringing together of our popular superstitions and 
beliefs. 
There are many Selbornians who have the opportunity of adding materially 
to the stock of knowledge already collected bearing upon the subject of folk-lore. 
Fragments of popular tradition are often associated with the names of animals or 
plants, and may often be elicited by the simple question, “ Why is it called so- 
and so ? ” It must always be remembered that folk-lore of this kind is yearly 
becoming more difficult to collect, and also that the merest scrap may be valuable 
as supplying a link which has been wanting in some chain of information. 
In the handy little volume before us, Mr. Gomme, the Director of the Folk- 
lore Society, has made the collection cf such items upon a definite plan an easy 
matter by the tabulation of a series of questions, the answers to which will em- 
brace the principal divisions of the subject ; and he has prefaced each section 
with a short but interesting summary of its principal development. With regard 
to the animal world, for example, after paralleling some of our common supersti- 
tions with those in other parts of the world — “ To tell bees of the death of their 
owner is a Hindu custom ; the descent of a spider is a lucky omen in Poly- 
nesia ; a hare crossing the path is unlucky in India, among Arab tribes, the Lap- 
landers and in South Africa ”- — he gives a series of questions as to lucky and 
unlucky creatures, their being regarded as death or harvest omens, their connec- 
tion with family life, their influence on the weather, their connection with the 
supernatural, their transformations, their creation, introduction and speech, and 
numerous other points of interest to the folk-lorist. Plants suggest a similar 
series of enquiries ; and everyone who will take the trouble to collect informa- 
tion of the kind with regard to any particular place or district will be doing 
something towards bringing together a complete body of folk-lore for these 
islands. 
