IRatiue IRotes: 
^bc Selbovne Society’s flbaoasine. 
No. 37. JANUARY, 1893. Vol. IV. 
WAYS OF WORK. 
By the Editor. 
E have been somewhat disappointed at tlie lack of 
response to our appeal for information as to the work 
undertaken by our Branches during 1892. From 
various sources, however, we have gleaned some 
knowledge of the work in progress, and we propose briefly to 
indicate a few of those which seem capable of extended adoption. 
It seems to us that the third object on the Society’s pro- 
gramme, “the promotion of the study of Natural History,” is 
that which offers the widest field of operations, and also that 
which will, in the long run, produce most results. Protests 
from time to time against this or that form of cruelty or thought- 
lessness, are of course needed, and we should fail in our duty if 
we did not make them ; but, in the words of the poet, 
to the solid ground 
Of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye. 
The more we diffuse a love for the objects of Nature, especially 
among the young, the less frequent will become the manifesta- 
tions of wantonness or cruelty. 
Reference was made in our last issue to the Junior Branches 
of the Society, as well as (p. 236) to the means taken in at least 
one Sunday School to interest the scholars in our wild flowers. 
We note with pleasure that the Lower Thames Valley Branch, 
which is taking a very leading position in Selbornian work, has 
arranged an admirable series of evening meetings for the winter 
session, to be held at the Athenaeum and High Schools, 
Richmond, at many of which lectures by competent and well- 
known naturalists are to be delivered. The first of these was 
held on November gth, when Mr. W. D. Wickes delivered a 
lecture on “ Spiders,” illustrated by diagrams and microscopic 
