154 
NATURE NOTES. 
In JVor/cers without linage (Griffith and Farran, Svo, pp. viii. , 1S4, 2s. 6d.)> 
Miss Edith Carrington has given us a capital series of chapters on “birds, beasts, 
and fishes,” besides a great deal of information about worms, insects, spiders, 
reptiles, and the like. No better book could be found for a school prize, or for 
use as a reading-book by Bands of Mercy — those admirable societies for encourag- 
ing a love of animals a.mong children, of which we hope very shortly to give some 
account in Nature Notes. Miss Carrington is on the side of the sparrow ; and 
the whole animal creation, so far as they are dealt with in this volume, find in 
her a warm friend and enthusiastic advocate. But the book is by no means 
“ gushing it is written plainly, simply, and with great sobriety, and is thus 
likely to appeal far more forcibly to folk generally than it would do if pitched in 
a higher key. It will take its place in every Selborne library, and we shall not 
be far wrong in predicting for it the wide circulation which it assuredly deserves. 
Each chapter ends with a suitable original poem, followed by a series of short 
and sensible questions and answers. 
Many books, as usual, stand over for notice, among them The Age of Disfigure- 
ment, by Mr. Richardson Evans (Remington, is.), an admirable little volume, 
in which the claims of the National Society for Checking the Abuses of Public 
Advertising are plainly and pleasantly set forth. We hope to notice this next 
month, but wish to call our readers’ attention to it without delay. They will find 
in it an agreeable substitute for the “shilling shocker” which too frequently 
accompanies holiday excursions. Miss Lucy Broadwood’s volume of English 
Country Songs (Leadenhall Press, 6s.), of which some preliminary particulars 
were given in Nature Notes for !March (p. 55), will also receive attention at an 
early date. 
SELBORNIANA. 
The Opening of Hampton Court Park and Bostall Wood. — 
There are few of our readers who will not hail with pleasure the addition of two 
important open spaces to the list of metropolitan parks and commons. Through 
the persistent endeavours of the Mayor of Kingston-on-Thames and Mr. Alderman 
Gould and others of that town, the public at last have gained admission to Hamp- 
ton Court Park, which was thrown open on the Whitsuntide Bank Holiday. We 
learn from the Daily News of May 23rd that many years ago the park used to be 
open, but few living can remember that time, and that since then till now the 
beautiful expanse of green meadow, with its clumps of stately trees, had been 
closed to all save those who could afford to pay the yearly fee of one guinea for 
the privilege of possessing a key. The same Bank Holiday witnessed the dedica- 
tion to public enjoyment of a beautiful piece of woodland in the south-east of 
London. Bostall Wood, which adjoins the Heath of the same name, already 
under the management of the London County Council, is not far from the crowded 
suburbs of Woolwich and Plumstead. What would have been the fate in the 
near future of the sixty-one acres of larch and fir of which it consists, save for the 
energetic action of the Open Spaces Committee of the London County Council, 
it is not difficult to imagine. As befitting the occasion, the wood was declared 
open by the Chairman of the County Council, not in the presence of a few chance 
onlookers, but in the midst of an immense concourse, the assemblage of a proces- 
sion that had reached more than a mile in length along the road from ^^ oolwich 
and Plumstead. Our limits only leave us room to echo the hope expressed on 
that occasion, that each succeeding Whitsuntide Bank Holiday may be marked 
by similar accessions to the parks and commons in and around London. 
Archibald Cl.arke. 
Barbed Wire. — The public are to be congratulated on the passing of the 
Barbed Wire Fences Bill, the Lords’ amendments to which were yesterday 
agreed to by the Commons. The measure constitutes barbed wire which may 
probably be injurious to persons or animals lawfully using a thoroughfare a 
