iSS 
NATURE NOTES. 
ence as part of the inevitable course of things. How often has it 
been the case that some scene of beauty or some memorial of 
antiquity has been destroyed simply from want of public atten- 
tion being called to it ! How often have we been reminded of 
the need of preservation too late, when the work of destruction 
was half done. 
In the first number of Nature Notes the Editor mentioned 
such warning protests against threatened destruction as one of 
the means by which he hoped to effect the Selborne Society’s 
work. He has always been most willing to allot much of the 
space at his disposal to such topics, sometimes with the result 
of bringing the matters dealt with before a much wider public 
than that of the members of the Selborne Society. As long as 
such an opportunity is afforded to the present writer, he would 
infinitely prefer to be regarded by pre-eminently practical 
people as a vain vox clamantis in deserto, than to have to reproach 
himself with having knowingly allowed one of the lovely haunts 
of nature still existing close to our great city to be desecrated 
without an indignant protest on his part, and an earnest appeal 
to those who share with him the enjoyment of such priceless, 
and alas, fast vanishing treasures. 
There can never be too many open spaces, either in the 
centre or what are now the borders of the metropolis ; indeed, 
as it is, there are far too few. Though one of the Selborne 
Society’s vice-presidents, Mr. William Morris, in his beautiful 
day-dream of News from Nowhere, anticipates a London of the 
twentieth century, shrunken to one quarter or less of its present 
size, with its suburbs, near and far, transformed into what they 
once were — fruit-laden orchards, fertile gardens and smiling 
meadows — harsh common sense, alas, seems to tell us that this 
consummation — desirable indeed — is impossible, to judge by the 
past history of the human race. Cornfields did not wave over 
the ruins of Troy and Carthage through a love'of nature, or a 
zeal against populations massing in towns, on the part of their 
destroyers. But what lies in our power, and in the power of 
those after us, is to rescue these beautiful spots that still remain 
near London from that which has lately been described in one 
of our leading daily papers as “ rural beauty’s canker-worm, its 
peculiar curse of decay,”* the suburban villa. At no small 
expense can it be done, but if brought about, many most surely 
will live to bless the day when Wimbledon Park was enrolled 
among those places dedicated for ever to public use and enjoy- 
ment. 
Archibald Clarke. 
Daily Nezvs (leading article), Aug. 19, 1S91. 
