PRESER VA TION OE SCENER Y. 
io 7 
amptonshire, we find the nightingale again in small numbers. 
When living at Great Bourton, some five or six miles north of 
this, 1883-1886, I found that one or two pairs visited that 
parish, and the only nightingale I have heard this year (May 
5th) was singing in a large overgrown blackthorn “double” 
some four miles from Bourton, just over the Warwickshire 
borders. 
These notes have already extended over too many pages, 
and 1 will only mention one other remarkable decrease in a 
species. I have the evidence of a well-known ornithologist to 
show that at the time he was at the University (thirty-five or 
forty years ago), the wryneck was common about Oxford ; now 
it is rare. Within my own recollection in this district, the wry- 
neck’s spring note was not an uncommon sound ; now I look 
upon the bird as quite a rarity. Again, I can give no reason 
for this diminution in either district. At Oxford the nightingale 
continues common. 
O. V. Aplin, 
Mcmbey of the British Ornithologists' Union ; 
Author of 11 Birds of Oxfordshire.’' 
THE PRESERVATION OF WOODLAND SCENERY 
AT HIGHGATE. 
IIWgJS^lARELY six miles to the north of St. Paul’s there 
c remains a fragment of what was once the great Forest 
1 of Middlesex. Many a rare flower and fern, long 
since vanished, grew in its glades and on its banks, 
and the deer trooped over the greensward. Jealously was the 
game preserved by the huntsman king, Henry VIII., by issue 
of a royal proclamation to the neighbouring dwellers ; jealously 
and earnestly should we strive to keep in perpetuity what little 
of wild nature yet remains there, be it bird, beast or flower. 
As each part of the remainder of this ancient forest becomes 
exposed, or is likely to be exposed, to the attacks of those who 
would sweep it away for ever, at once there arises the necessity 
of uttering a warning note of the danger. 
One portion, known as Bishop’s Wood, lying between East 
Finchley and the “ Spaniards,” Hampstead Heath, is now 
being offered for sale on building leases. To this attention has 
already been drawn (see Nature Notes, June, 1890, p. 90) by 
the present writer, who would now invite the readers of this 
magazine to glance over, in imagination as it were, the features 
of another part of this fragment of forest, and would enlist their 
earnest efforts for its preservation. 
After passing Southwood Hall, at Highgate, the road to 
Muswell Hill dips down into a little hollow. Left of the road, 
in all seventy acres, and now so happily secure from the inroads 
