24 
NATURE NOTES. 
away until there is not a breath of air, and the sky is still 
covered with a thin grey cloud. Nature’s spring has already 
commenced in this month of August, although almanack spring 
will not begin until the 22nd of September. The birds are 
mating, the grass and herbs are growing, and the fruit trees 
budding, while insect life is also to the fore. We notice, as we 
sit down to our frugal supper, that a long-bodied, long-legged, 
and long-horned beetle is sprawling about on the window pane, 
which is further adorned with a little broad-winged brown 
moth, and divers specimens of the gnat tribe — a tribe which, 
alas for human comfort ! will soon display itself in overwhelm- 
ing profusion. 
Hamilton Stuart Dove. 
Table Cape, Tasmania, August 2^th, 1892. 
SIR RICHARD OWEN AND HIS BIRDS. 
N intense affection for animals and birds was a leading 
characteristic of the great naturalist who was taken 
from us at a ripe old age shortly before Christmas. 
He had, indeed, a love for Nature in all her aspects, 
and almost to the last was able to enjoy his daily walk in his 
old-fashioned garden at Sheen Lodge, on the borders of Rich- 
mond Park, planted with trees and shrubs from all parts of the 
world, many of them by his own hands. 
Several times in the course of my visits, during the last ten 
years, I had the privilege of being invited by him into his garden, 
to see his “ feathered friends.” And what a sight it was ! never 
to be forgotten by those who love our birds. Sir Richard de- 
lighted to make them his companions. There the blackbirds, 
thrushes, tits, sparrows, pigeons, &c., would hover about the 
kind old gentleman, perch on his hat and shoulders when he 
called, and feed from his hand and lips. What a lesson was 
there to those who so ruthlessly destroy thousands of our 
small birds to afford gratification to the milliner or the dress- 
maker’s fair customers; or to the “sportsmen,” who kill the 
poor pigeon ere he can rise from his miserable “ trap.” 
I am a sportsman myself, but I do not regard this and many 
so-called sports of the present day as sportsmanlike. Why 
have we left the good old times of walking after our game with 
gun and dog in both turnip and cover, and giving them a chance 
for life, instead of slaying them in battues of thousands, as is the 
fashion of the day ? Who would not prefer the kindness and 
beauty of spirit of this old philosopher, round whom the birds 
clustered in his Richmond garden, to the materialistic natures, 
whose love of animal destruction is raised to the doubtful dig- 
nity of a fine art ? What a delightful and idealic picture was 
