28 
NATURE NOTES. 
have taken their place. In 1889 the first thrush was heard. It 
sang for two mornings and then we heard and saw no more of it. 
About a week ago from the time I write, another of these 
English songsters was heard close to the house. 
The exceedingly rapid increase at first of imported creatures 
is very remarkable ; climatic conditions are favourable, food 
abundant, there is no disease, and at first no natural enemies, 
indeed, some time appears to elapse before it dawns on the more 
predaceous creatures to make experiments. I know that at first 
pheasants did well in New Zealand, partridges increased too, 
for a few seasons, then came a check ; in the minds of wekas 
and hawks no doubt familiarity had bred contempt. The former 
sucked the eggs and devoured the chicks, while the latter preyed 
on the older birds. Flock owners who have turned sheep for 
the first time on to country infested by wild dogs, have told me 
that it was weeks and even months before these pests left the 
wild pigs they had been accustomed to prey upon, and took to 
worrying the new animal. I think it is not unlikely, therefore, 
that the first rapid spread and subsequent decline in several 
species may in this manner be accounted for. But although our 
partridges are extinct, and our pheasants and Californian quail 
stationary in numbers, yet year by year new birds arrive ; and 
before very long we shall hear the robin whistling from our 
garden crofts, and the nightingale of Shakespere, Milton, and 
Keats “ singing of summer in full-throated ease.” 
H. Guthrie Smith. 
Tuiiva Lake, Hawkes Bay, 
New Zealand. 
SEEDLINGS.* 
If these two large and handsome volumes did nothing else, they would bear 
ample testimony to the inexhaustibility of the material for observation and 
research which is spread around us on all sides in such lavish profusion. Folk 
sometimes talk as if there were a danger of the subjects for our study coming to 
an end, just as we are from time to time alarmed by prognostications of the 
failure of our coal supply. But such fears, at any rate in the former case, are 
happily groundless. It is true that if we could understand all about the “ flower 
in the crannied wall ” — what it is, “ root and all, and all in all ” — our knowledge 
of things would extend far beyond those of this earthly sphere ; but of such know- 
ledge we may say with certainty that it is “ too wonderful and excellent ” for us — 
we “ cannot attain unto it.” 
Everyone, however, who is not a mere collector but a true naturalist, knows 
well enough that the field before him is inexhaustible. This lesson was taught 
by Gilbert White to his own and to succeeding generations ; and in later days- 
it has been presented to us in new aspects by Charles Darwin on one hand, and 
Richard Jefferies on the other. The former of these showed us the interest and 
* A Contribution to our Knowledge of -Seedlings, by Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., &c. 
London, i8q 2 : Kegan Paul, Trench, Tritbner & Co. 8vo, vol. i, pp. viii., 608 ; vol. ii., pp. 
646 ; with 684 figures in the text. Price i6s. 
