iS8 
NATURE NOTES. 
And there th’ abrupt and comely “Nore” 
Guards that wild world of bloom and bird 
\\'here his clear patient sense of yore 
Conned sights and sounds, which ne’er before 
Sweet poets saw or heard. 
And here, hard by, the nightingale 
For the first time in springtide sang. 
While Gilbert listened ; here the pale 
First blackthorn dowered, while down the gale 
The cuckoo’s mockeries rang ! 
And there rathe swallows would appear, 
To whirl on high their first gavotte ; 
And there the last of the great deer 
Fell on a winter midnight clear 
’Neath a “ night-hunter’s” shot. 
We know' it all ! Familiar, too, 
Seems this quaint hamlet ’neath the steeps, — 
House, “ Pleystor,” church, and churchyard yew. 
And the plain headstone, hid from view, 
^^'here their historian sleeps. 
’Twas just a century gone by 
They laid the simple cleric here : 
Th’ old world was in her agony, 
And “ Nature ! Reason ! ” was the cry 
In that historic year. 
But O ! another Nature ’twas 
That ruled him with her magic touch, 
A mistress of delightful laws. 
Whom still we learn to love because 
We love her servant much ! 
V. G. P. 
A GUIDE TO BRITISH FUGNI.- 
j. T this time of the year many lovers of nature are anti- 
cipating “ fungus forays,” and many more are bewailing 
the absence of some suitable little book of modest price 
which shall enable them to identify at least the com- 
moner species of our large fungi. Scarcely any group of 
plants is so discouraging in its study to the beginner. In the 
first place they are so numerous in w'hat are called species. In 
the second, these species are so extremely alike that their own 
* Guide to Sowerby’s Models of British P'ungi in the Department of Botany, 
British Museum (Natural History). By Worthington G. Smith, F.L.S. pp. 82, 
93 figs-, price 4d. 
