154 
NATURE NOTES. 
whom Miss I’lues associates the male pronoun (p. 28) was a lady of that name 
(spelt “Twamley ”) who still liv'es and writes as Mrs. Meredith. 
M'e are very sorry to speak thus severely, but our remarks are intended not so 
much for the author as for the person who has pretended to “ revise ” the work. 
When we spoke on p. 113 of !NIr. Burgess’s book on wild flowers as “ the worst 
■ of its kind ” we had not seen the present volume. 
BOOKS FOR NATURE LOVERS. 
Mr. F. A. Knight has reprinted another selection of his papers from the 
Daily News under the title Rambles of a Dominie (London, Wells Gardner 
& Co., 5s.) In this form they will reach a wider circle of readers, and many 
who perused them with pleasure on their first appearance will be glad to have 
them in this collected edition, adorned with two beautiful photo-gravures and 
other illustrations. 
The first essay, a genial sermon on the text “ Eyes and No Eyes,” is thoroughly 
Selbornian in spirit ; it might have been written, as we have half a suspicion that 
it was, as a tribute to the memory of Richard Jefl'eries, and is more in his style 
than any other in the book. Then comes “Jack Sparrow,” in the course of 
which Mr. Knight discusses the questions which recently raged in these columns, 
summing up in favour of this “follower of man.” The analogy between the 
London sparrow and the city arab has been pointed out before, and Mr. 
Knight extends it to the “sharp and scurrilous notes, savouring of profanity” in 
which his feathered friend indulges. The kingfisher and the magpie are ne.xl 
described, followed by a chapter on the “ Fair Maids of February,” in the course of 
which the author speaks of “ monkish legends,” which say that “ it blossomed in the 
winter in memory of the Virgin’s first visit to the Temple with the Infant Christ.” 
We should be glad to know more of these legends, but we must take exception to 
some of Mr. Knight’s examples of plants associated with the Madonna. Then we 
have careful descriptions of hills and hollows in the ^lendips, after which come 
three chapters which take us to the Orkneys. Then we find ourselves in Bavaria, 
hunting (and we are sorry to say killing) a chamois ; then we go to Dartmoor, the 
Thames, Naseby, and other places, to all of which the author is a pleasant guide 
and companion. 
Mr. Knight is not Richard Jefferies, and his writing only occasionally gives 
that sense of photographic accuracy which the latter author always contrived to 
convey. He has quite evidently read more, and his pencil is applied with greater 
artistic skill. There is no need to contrast the two, but the comparison seems 
almost inevitable ; and we may be allowed to think that if Jefferies had not 
written, we should have heard but little of Mr. Knight, and the world would have 
been the poorer. But it is only in his essays and in the two stories which portray 
his own early life that Jefferies is charming ; his novels and tales are in every way 
unsatisfactory. Mr Bentley has sent us a reprint of The Dewy .Morn (6s.) which 
cannot fail to disappoint his admirers, while it will give an unfavourable impression 
■to those wLo read it as a specimen of Jefferies’s work. The stciyis of the slightest 
kind, the characters are unnatural, when not purely conventional ; and the minute 
descriptions of scenery and other details, even when they remind us of Jefferies at 
his best, seem tedious and irrelevant as accessories to a tale, assuming as they 
do a magnitude entirely disproportionate to their importance. Of Jefferies the 
naturalist we can hardly have too much ; but Jefferies the novelist is a different 
person, with whom we do not wish to extend our acquaintance. 
We are glad to welcome two more volumes by the “.Son of the Marshes,” 
who still chooses to veil his identity beneath this somewhat cumbrous nom de 
plume ; and Mrs. Owen, the lady who edits his books, and to whom, if report 
speaks truly, his discovery is due, also merits our thanks. The analogy between 
this writer and Jefferies, to which we referred on a former occa.sion, is borne out 
by these recent volumes. In Annals 0] a Fishing Village (William Blackwood 
& Son, 7s. 6d.) we have a counterpart of Bevis, while IVithin an Hour of London 
