SELBORNE SOCIETY NOTICES 
19 
Subscriptions. — The Council has great pleasure in acknowledging sub- 
scriptions of greater value than 5s. from the following members : Miss II. Taylor, 
10s. ; the Hon. C. Graham Murray, 7s. 6d. 
New Members. — Central Society. — The following stand for election : Miss 
Innes, Miss Honora Taylor. 
Hampstead Branch. — Miss Dorothy Wilson. 
Abinger and Shere Branch — The Lady Farrer, The Hon. Fanny Farrer. 
Library. — The Honorary Librarian will attend at 20, Hanover Square, from 
6 p.m. to 6.30 p.m., on the evenings when the Publications Committtee meet (at 
present on the second Monday in the month), for the purpose of issuing books to 
Members. 
The Hon. Librarian has pleasure in announcing the following additions to 
the Library, all kindly presented by the Editor: “ Beasties Courageous,” by 
Douglas English. “Nature in Eastern Norfolk,” by A. H. Paterson. “Nature 
through Microscope and Camera,” by Richard Kerr. “New Creations in Plant 
Life,” by W. S. Harwood. “ Travels of a Naturalist in Northern Europe,” 
two vols., by J. A. Harvie-Brown. “ Uses of British Plants,” by Rev. Prof. G. 
Henslow. “ Wild Wings,” by H. K. Tob. 
NEWS FROM THE BRANCHES. 
Abinger and Shere. — On Thursday evening, November 30, Miss Edith 
Pitcairn gave a lecture on “The Daily Life of English Wild Birds” in Abinger 
Hammer Schoolroom. The lecture was illustrated by excellent lantern slides, 
and the interesting anecdotes and instructive facts told by Miss Pitcairn were 
much applauded by the audience. At the Peaslake Schoolroom, on the evening 
of December 1, Miss Edith Pitcairn chatted pleasantly about “Birds and their 
Ways,” including some especially interesting notes on the Albatross and the 
Penguin, their settlements and nurseries. 
WINTER MEETINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 
Saturday afternoon , November 25. — About seventy members of the Selborne 
Society assembled at 33, Queen Street, where Mr. Miihlberg kindly gave a 
demonstration on Zoology in Everyday Life. After reviewing the different 
branches of this great science, Biology, Morphography, Bionomics, Zoo-Dyna- 
mics, Zoo-Phy'sics, Zoo-Chemistry, Plasmology, and Philosophical Zoology, the 
lecturer dwelt on the one he had made his life study, that of fur-bearing 
animals and the use of their skins to us in every-day life. He rejoiced in the 
fact that during the last sixty to seventy years, principally owing to the intro- 
duction of steam and railways and consequent facilities for travelling, all the 
myths about the various extraordinary animals, monsters, sea-serpents and the 
like, supposed to exist oversea, have given way to the more accurate and 
definite knowledge of to-day. Lately, only very few large animals, not known 
to man before, have been discovered ; one instance of these few was the Okapi, 
discovered two )ears ago. As to the uses made of the pelts of fur-bearing 
animals, they are more extensive than is generally known. Not only are fur 
skins made up into garments, hats, gloves, shoes and rugs, &c., but they are 
also used for artist’s and ordinary brushes, and in many cases the fur is cut off 
for making felt. Again they are used for medicinal purposes, as, for example, 
the skin of the wild cat, which is largely sold as a cure for rheumatism in 
France. Many toys are made of them, anglers’ flies, and for oil refining the 
brush of the fox is used as a purifier. An extensive range of nearly all the skins 
of the fur-bearing animals was systematically shown and explained by the 
lecturer, who kept the audience interested for nearly two hours. There were 
specimens of the valuable Silver and Black Fox, of which the finest skins fetch 
^600 and more each ; of the Russian Sable, which have realised in public sale up 
to £60 ; of the Hudson’s Bay Stone and Pine Martens ; of the Wolverine, Ermine, 
Wolf, Skunk, and Civet Cat, the latter being of a colour similar to the Skunk — jet 
black and pure white — but the stripes in the shape of a lyre. Of the Chin- 
chilla, both real ones from Peru and the Bastard Chinchilla from La Plata. 
Also of the Bear, and its kinsman the Raccoon, called by the Germans Wash- 
bear, because it dips into water each morsel of its food whenever possible, and 
