10 
NATURE NOTES 
caught the trick of their master’s style, when he had, as Cowper said, “ made 
poetry a mere mechanic art.” Mr. Witchell is better known to readers of 
Nature Notes as an ornithologist than as a poet, and we do not hesitate to 
say that the best passages in the present little volume are those alluding to bird 
life. 
Nature in Eastern Norfolk. By Arthur H. Patterson. With twelve illustrations 
in colour by F. Southgate. Methuen and Co. Price 6s. 
Gilbert White, though not rich, was comfortably off, and can never have been 
said to have to work hard for his daily bread : he could, therefore, buy necessary 
books of reference ; and he had received a university education. Arthur Patter- 
son, as he tells us in one of the frankest of autobiographies, was one of the large 
family of a Yarmouth shoemaker, received his “ education ” in a local dame’s 
school, and, though decidedly “a rolling stone,” has certainly worked hard as a 
supernumerary postman. Like White, however, he is clearly a born observer of 
a high order. Tireless in his observation of the birds of his native shores, he has 
added to his knowledge of their fish by distributing his own paintings of his desi- 
derata among the fishermen. There is too much slaughter of rare birds in the 
record of his earlier years to please Selbornians ; but we read with pleasure of his 
replacing his gun by a binocular ; and, though he is still under fifty, he is able to 
give in this volume a most excellent account of his time. Not only is his book 
full of most accurate first-hand observation, but the simple narrative and catalogue 
are drawn up with the greatest care, and scientific names are added, with refer- 
ences to the works of his predecessors. What with Sir Thomas Browne, Sir 
James Paget and his brother, Richard Lubbock, Churchill Babington, J. H. 
Gurney, F. Harmer and Thomas Southwell, Norfolk has certainly had a worthy 
succession of zoologists ; and, were the plants of the county under consideration, 
perhaps as good a list might be given of its botanists ; but we can confidently 
assert that none of these worthies has done more original work than Mr. Patter- 
son. He confines his observations to the vertebrates, stalk-eyed crustaceans and 
mollusks, and we are convinced that his list of the latter can be considerably 
extended. Mr. Southgate’s coloured illustrations of shore birds are charming. 
Red Fox. By Charles G. D. Roberts. With many illustrations by Charles 
Livingston Bull. Duckworth and Co. Price 6s. net. 
This is the story — a composite but typical story — of a Red Fox in the back- 
woods of Eastern Canada. Without the pathos of “ The Story of the Red Deer,” 
or the inexorable fatalism of Mr. Thompson Seton’s books, which in style and get- 
up it forcibly recalls, the story is full of go, and is obviously true to life. The 
author’s preface is dated from New Brunswick ; but Canada is, perhaps, not equal 
to such beautiful printing, which hails, we see, from Boston. The author’s 
language is sometimes American rather than English, as when he writes that a 
hound “withdrew from the mix-up” and gripped the fox’s throat “just back of 
the jawbone.” Mr. Bull’s illustrations, and especially his backgrounds, are too 
impressionist for our taste ; but we have no doubt that many a boy reader this 
Christmas will be quite oblivious to this characteristic while he devours the 
story. 
New Creations in Plant Life : an authoritative account of the life and work of 
Luther Burbank. By W. S. Harwood. The Macmillan Company. Price 
7s. 6d. net. 
When we are told that Luther Burbank is “ a great and unique genius,” 
“unique in his knowledge of nature,” and “has already accomplished in his 
chosen line of life more than any other man who has ever lived,” we cannot call 
this “authoritative” account modest ; and, when we are told that “ he has done 
more in a generation in creating new and useful types of plant life than Nature, 
unaided, would ever have accomplished,” we cannot help thinking that Mr. 
Harwood somewhat discredits his hero’s own theory of the origin of species. 
But, however much we may question the taste of its presentation, there is no 
doubt that Burbank’s work has to he reckoned with by the biologist. He has 
been selecting, hybridising and grafting plants on a large scale for years in “the 
glorious climate of California,” with a success of which the Shasta daisies are, 
perhaps, the example best known on this side of the Atlantic ; and as a result of 
