SELBORNIANA. 
93 
A Merited Rebuke. — The Hackney Mercury of April Sth, always Sel- 
hornian, contains the following remonstrance concerning an item in an industrial 
exhibition lately held at Dalston. The exhibit “ consisted of three enormous 
cases, the butterflies in which were so arranged as to represent respectively a star, 
a Catherine wheel, and an heraldic device. To say with any degree of accuracy 
what number of insects — and portions of insects — must have been used in the 
]jreparation of even one of these would be well nigh impossible, but we should not 
be very far wrong in saying that they could be reckoned by thousands. As a 
monument of industry and a marvel of constructive workmanship we have cer- 
tainly never seen their etjual, the perfect symmetry of the insects reminding one 
of nothing so much as the carpet bedding which is so familiar a feature of our 
public parks. But what a terrible carnage is represented by the sum total of 
these exhibits, and cui bono 1 Nameless, and in many cases mutilated and in 
unnatural positions, these insects are valueless as an aid to scientific research, 
and, so far as we can see, can serve no earthly purpose than that of giving 
evidence of indomitable perseverance and skill at the expense of some of the 
frailest of God’s creatures. It is just this wholesale and wanton slaughter of 
Nature’s choicest ornaments that the Selborne Society seeks to prevent a practice 
which in some cases — notably the beautiful swallowtail butterfly — has resulted in 
the partial extinction of the species.” 
A Selborne Lecture. — On Tuesday, April nth, at a meeting of the 
Young -Men’s Society in connection with Trinity Presbyterian Church, Wimble- 
don, Mr. G. W. Kirkaldy read an essay on “Gilbert White of Selborne.” The 
essayist briefly sketched White’s life history, and gave a description of the village 
and the more outlying parts of the parish ; also a notice of the various animals 
mentioned by White in his letters. Reference was made to the Selborne Society 
and the good work it was doing, and prospectuses were distributed among the 
auditors. 
The Egret Again. — The Cornhill Magazine for April speaks of “ the 
miserable fate that awaits many a beautiful little egret just when, in its fairest 
dress, it sits on the nest. One feather firm, we are told, has as many as fifty men 
employed in the nesting season to secure those feathers that milliners call aigrettes, 
which are so much worn in women’s bonnets. Some will tell you that these are 
chiefly manufactured from goose quills. That is true of the cheaper ones, but the 
aigrette in a lady’s bonnet is the crowning beauty of an egret mother. The col- 
lector waits till she is on her nest, her little breast full of peace, and the young 
just hatched, so that the mother will not leave them easily, though alarmed. He 
ruthlessly seizes her, tears off her crowning plumes and her wings, and then throws 
her down, gasping, torn and fluttering, to die beside her little ones, who, deprived 
of her fostering care, die also miserably. Lately, at a meeting of anli-vivisec- 
tionists, it was a curious instance of ‘ the evil wrought through want of thought ’ 
that many of the ladies protesting against the cruelty of vivisection wore those 
very egret plumes in their bonnets.” 
Thrushes and Drink. — We have received an extremely satisfactory assu- 
rance from the London County Council that it is “ the desire of the Parks Com- 
mittee of the Council to take every possilde step to ]ireserve bird and animal life 
in the parks under their control.” The Chief Officer of the Parks and Open 
Spaces Sub-Uepartment asks for .such information as will enable him to investigate 
the case to which we referred at p. 78. Can any reader supply this? 
Lantern Slides (pp. 55, 77). — I do not know if it would be possible to 
photograph cases of birds successfully, but if so I cannot imagine a more interest- 
ing lecture than one that could be illustrated by numbers of the cases of birds to 
be seen at the little museum belonging to Mr. Mart, of Christchurch, Hants. The 
birds are just as you would see them in life — the stone-chat on the top of a furze 
bush, the nest of eggs in the mirlst of the bush, and the identical piece of turf the 
bush grew in at the bottom of the case ; the ringed plover on the pebbly beach, 
her four babies huddled together, evidently about to disappear in the sand to avoid 
the intruder ; the nightjar nestling amid the heather, so like it that one may tread 
on it almost without seeing it ; the peregrine in the haunt it has frequented for at 
