SEE B ORNIA N A . 
155 
A “ Singing Mouse.” — (. See Nature Notes, vol. i.p. 97.) — At the annual 
meeting of the Bath Branch of the Selborne Society, Mr. G. H. Leonard, of 
Clifton, exhibited, to the interest of the audience, a tiny singing mouse. He 
■explained that the little animal was in every way similar to the house mouse, and 
had recently been taken from the Easton coal-pits, where it had made many friends 
among the miners. The singing at times was like the chirping of a chicken, then 
like a cartwheel that wanted oil, and then again it sometimes appeared to possess 
the true note of a nightingale. By some people the singing had been attributed 
to a diseased liver, and by others to a malformation of the trachea. The mouse had 
been examined, however, and no signs of either were found. 
The Cry of the Albatross. —All ardent Selbornians will rejoice with me 
over a recent Natural History trouvaille, to wit, the discovery of the cry of the 
albatross — a creature which, more fortunate than another aquatic bird of con- 
siderable dimensions, speaks with the voice of melody not once only in a dying 
song, but diurnally, it may be, hourly. I say this important discovery is a recent 
one, but it might have been made years ago. The information lay at our hands, 
enshrined in deathless verse, quoted by every schoolboy ; and yet its import was 
not recognised. It is to be found in the eighteenth verse of the first part of the 
“ Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” a poem than which few are better known ; and 
yet it has remained for a Frenchman — O purblind race of English naturalists ! — 
to draw in these last days their secret meaning from the few simple Saxon words 
of the great poet. For note how, with a flash of genius revealing the hidden 
purport of what to our beef-witted intellects seemed devoid of esoteric signifi- 
cance, M. Sarrazin, in La Renaissance de la poesie Anglaise translates the second 
half of the verse : — 
“ Et chaque jour pour manger ou pour jouer 
Cria aux mariniers : ‘ Hollo ! 1 ” 
I am sure you will agree with me that we owe a deep debt to our versatile 
neighbour. Who, therefore, among us, as a slight expression of our gratitude, 
will undertake the preparation of a work complementary to that of the great 
discoverer — La Renaissance de VHistoire Naturelle Franfaise ? 
An Ealing Selbornian. 
[Our witty and well-informed correspondent’s experience must have led him to 
believe in the existence of Macaulay’s schoolboys, who apparently knew every- 
thing that could possibly be known, together with a large selection of additional 
matter. As we are not so sure that the passage is habitually quoted by every 
Selbornian, boy or otherwise, we venture to append Coleridge’s lines : — - 
“And a good south wind sprung up behind ; 
The albatross did follow, 
And every day, for food or play, 
Came to the mariners’ hollo 1 ”] 
A Botanical Excursion. — We have received an account of a botanical 
ramble conducted on a principle which we cordially recommend for imitation by 
other Selbornians. On the 18th of July a large party of the Lower Thames 
Valley Branch (Juvenile Section), visited Virginia Water on a flower-hunting 
expedition. Miss Wallis, the Hon. Secretary of the Branch, and the creator of 
the local juvenile section, accompanied them ; and Miss Rosa Little, who not 
unfrcquently contributes to our columns, acted as botanical demonstrator. A 
most agreeable day was spent, and a large number of specimens secured. Several 
of the young ladies who belonged to the party were not advanced botanical 
students, but Miss Little has devised a plan by which they might afterwards more 
fully identify and study the plants which she named for them on the day of the 
excursion. We have seen a very interesting list prepared by her in which con- 
siderably more than a hundred of the plants gathered are arranged in their orders, 
with Latin and English names, notes for identification and other helps for closer 
study on the part of those who have first made the acquaintance of the plants 
named on their holiday ramble. If other botanists could be prevailed on to take 
as much trouble with the results of a similar expedition, we feel sure that no 
better method could be adopted for obtaining a pleasant and easy introduction to 
the study of systematic botany. We noticed on Miss Little’s list Scutellaria 
galericulata and A. minor, but not the intermediate form A. Nicholsoni, which 
was originally discovered by Mr. George Nicholson, of Kew, at a similar excursion 
to Virginia Water, and is, we believe, still to be found there in abundance. 
