IRature IRotes: 
^be Selbovne Society’s Hbagasine. 
No. 27. MARCH, 1892. VoL. III. 
THE NEW FOREST IN DANGER. 
URING the past month the nature-loving public has 
been deeply stirred by the proposal on the part of the 
War Office to seize a portion of the New Forest for 
the purpose of constructing a new rifle range, and for 
military purposes generally. Mr. Herbert Goss, Secretary of 
the Entomological Society, has at once set to work to elicit the 
opinion of leading men of science and art, politicians of all 
schools, influential persons in various positions, and of nature- 
lovers of all kinds, and his protest has been signed by a very 
large number of representatives of all these classes. 
The decision of the matter is still pending, and we reserve 
until our next issue a summary of the facts of the case. Mean- 
while, we would urge upon every Selbornian the absolute duty 
of watchfulness, not only in large matters like this, but in small 
ones. The amount of grabbing of foot-paths and roadside strips, 
of waste and common land, that has been allowed to go on 
unchecked, and without even a protest, during the last hundred 
years is enough to bring down upon the nation the curse pro- 
nounced of old upon those who remove their neighbour’s land- 
mark ; and the robbery is still going on. Every country Sel- 
bornian should regard it as an imperative duty to be on the 
look-out for malpractices of this kind. The cry of “ The land 
for the people,” may be regarded as the shibboleth of a certain 
class of politicians ; but there can be no difference of opinion 
among thinking persons as to the desirability that the people 
should cling to what is already theirs. 
We have received the Report of the National Footpath 
Society, of which space compels us to defer a notice. But we 
would call upon our country readers to watch with jealous eyes 
any attempt at interference with public rights in the matter 
either of common land or public paths. There may, of course, 
