IRature IRotes : 
TEbe Selbonic Society’s flbacjasine. 
No. 132. DECEMBER, 1900. Vol. XL 
SELBORNIANA. 
Financial Position of the Society. — If the donations 
made last year to the Selborne Society’s general fund be 
repeated this year, it is probable that the deficit now reduced 
to ;^37 IS. 2^d. will disappear from the account for igoo ; but 
otherwise it will not. It is not, surely, an unreasonable hope 
in such circumstances that those donations may be at least 
repeated, and the matter is specially referred to now as the 
payment of annual subscriptions, due on January i next, 
will afford a convenient occasion for sending donations. It 
will also obviously afford a suitable occasion for sending 
increased subscriptions. 
In addition to the immediate purpose of redressing the 
financial balance, the Society has in view, as need hardly be 
stated, abundant opportunities for the useful application of 
funds. 
Telegraph Poles. — E. G. Aldridge, F.G.S., F.R.Met.Soc., 
writes: — “I am glad that attention has been called in Nature 
Notes to the ruination of scenery by telegraph poles and wires. 
It is hardly too much to say that wherever I go my pleasure is 
seriously marred by these most unsightly objects. Even along 
Deeside the magnificent prospects are spoilt by telegraph-poles 
on the one hand and by telephone-posts on the other, so that 
the road-sides somewhat resemble the temporarily disused 
drying-ground of a laundress. At the ruins of Roxburgh 
Castle telegraph-poles are made to leave the highway, run 
between the ruins and the stream, and (after purposely, as it 
were, marring the river-scenery) rejoin the highway farther on. 
This kind of thing has become intolerable ; and it would be 
