BIRDS IN AN ALPINE GARDEN. 
3 
Those who want a new field for investigation will find it 
readily enough in the seedlings of common plants. Mrs. 
Brightwen told us something about seedling trees in Nature 
Notes for last August (pp. 143-145), and we hope next month 
to say something about the two large volumes which Sir John 
Lubbock has lately devoted to the subject. Seedlings are easy 
to collect ; they dry well, and take up but little space ; and the 
variety among them is remarkable. Many collections of dried 
plants would be the richer for the addition of a set of seedlings. 
These are only some of the ways in which the objects of the 
Selborne Society may be carried out. The present year is the 
centenary of the death of Gilbert White : could Selbornians 
observe it more fittingly than by making a special effort tO’ 
advance the principles which are associated with his name ? 
BIRDS IN AN ALPINE GARDEN. 
HIS year the garden was unusually full of flowers. 
During the three summer months the sun was brilliant, 
and frosts kept away. Alpine poppies, larkspurs, 
pansies, made a brilliant show ; tall blue mountain 
holly (Evyngium alpimm), saxifrages shining like stars, and 
gentians and tiny drabas mingling with St. Bruno’s lily and 
veronica, sweet briar, thyme and delicate spiraea ; these also lived 
which is more than five thousand feet above 
luminous, sweet with the scent of 
The hues of flowers and butterflies 
in the walled garden 
sea level, and the air was 
hayfields which encircle it. 
are more brilliant in these high regions than in the lowlands. 
Crowds of red admirals, peacocks, and humming-bird moths 
floated in from the meadows, and were busy all day long among 
the pink saxifrages. The tiny stream went merrily among those 
most cherished primulas, which need to wet their roots in order 
to live. The fountain played strange melodies to the intoxica- 
ting sunlight, and dragon-flies would come occasionally to rest 
their shining wings upon its brink. 
Autumn came with sudden frosts in the early weeks of 
October. Flowers were nipped ere they could burst the sheath, 
and butterflies retired to dark crevices disconsolate. On Sun- 
day, the gth, came snow. We awoke on Monday to find the 
mountain ashes bowed down to the ground. Flowers were sunk 
from sight. A bitter wind went screaming down the valley. 
Six days of snow, alternating with a dry chill wind, and the 
mountain-ash leaves are dead, and aspens shiver and fall. Yet, 
the birds somehow persuade themselves that life is worth liv- 
ing even up here. The redstart, who built his nest under the 
eaves, has left us long ago ; his song was a joy to hear, so ex- 
quisitely tender. I heard a mysterious twittering among the 
elder bushes on Saturday, and beheld through the coral berries' 
