22 
NATURE NOTES 
staying in the same hotel as myself complained that many rare 
species had been completely exterminated in the neighbour- 
hood.” Mr. Bull suggests that notices in German, French and 
English should be posted up in the hotels. We would also 
call attention to the fact that several Swiss cantons have 
prohibited by law the gathering of certain rare species, and that 
there exists at Geneva', 2, Chemin Dancet, a garden founded in 
1883 by 1 ’ Association pour la Protection des Plantes, under the 
presidency of M. H. Correvon, expressly for the cultivation of 
species which are in danger of extermination by tourists. Will 
someone imitate this good example at Pontresina ? 
Fresh-killed Sea-birds. — A correspondent writes as 
follows: — “ Will you allow me to call attention to the following 
advertisement from The Bazaar of December 27 — ■ 
Clean fresh seabirds, in the flesh, for stuffing. Price list id. stamp. 
Clarke, Naturalist, .Scarboro’. 
jNIight not the powerful influence of the Selborne Society be 
exerted towards inducing editors of such papers as the above to 
refuse insertion to advertisements of this class ? A supply of 
fresh killed sea-birds always ready for customers seems to 
involve a wholesale slaughter of these beautiful, interesting and 
perfectly harmless creatures, whose presence is to many one 
of the principal charms of the seaside. Advertisements, too, 
dealing with wings of jays, starlings and other bright-plumaged 
British birds ought surely to be discouraged in every way.” 
Thoreau and Jefferies. — I regret that the author of the 
article on “ Literature of Field and Fledgerow ” should have 
tried to exalt Jefferies at the expense of Thoreau, for either of 
these great writers is supreme in his own way, and nothing can 
be gained by pitting one against the other. The passage, more- 
over, that is cited from Thoreau is an unimportant and obscure 
one (his true masterpieces being overlooked), while the “ Pageant 
of Summer,” with which rve are asked to compare it, is one of 
the most brilliant things that Jefferies wrote. Again, it is hardly 
fair to say of Thoreau, “ we fear he was no more a genuine 
naturalist than he was a genuine hermit.” He did not pretend 
to be either a hermit or a naturalist — in the sense imputed. It 
was not his vocation, like that of Gilbert White, merely to record 
observations of animals and plants. He was not a naturalist 
but a “ poet-naturalist ” ; and so too, as a matter of fact, was 
Jefferies, whose descriptions of nature are as deeply coloured 
by his own personality as those of Thoreau himself. As far as 
Field and Hedgerow are concerned, the true contrast appears 
to me to be between the simple and the complex, between the 
naturalist. White, on the one hand, and the poet-naturalists, 
Jefferies and Thoreau, on the other. On the question of thought 
and style it is impo.ssible here to enter, though scant justice has 
