136 
NATURE NOTES 
T welvc Councillors. 
George Rowland Blades, F.R.G.S. 
J. Shaw Crompton, R.I. 
F. A. Currey. 
Norman Gray, P.A.S.I. 
John Hopkinson, F.L.S. 
Peter Lawson, F.R.M.S. 
Mrs. McKay. 
C. M. Miihlberg. 
E. A. Nash. 
F. W. Rudler, I.S.O., F.G.S. 
Percival Westell, M.B.O.U. 
A. B. Wilkinson. 
Mr. Hall and the Rev. H. N. Hutchinson kindly acted as 
scrutineers, and while they were counting the votes, Dr. Dudley 
Buxton gave the address on “The Cult of the Selbornian,” 
which appears on another page. 
SELBORNIAN A. 
Our Contents. — The Editor regrets that owing to pressure 
on our limited space he has been again obliged to hold over all 
reviews and many interesting papers he has received. 
A Pilgrimage to Selborne. — Mr. H. M. Tomlinson con- 
tributes to the Morning Leader a sympathetic article with this 
title, from which we take the following passages : — 
“You get out at Liss Station, and Selborne is six miles off, the way I went. 
Turn to the right outside the Station, crossing the line. Make for Hawkley. 
At Hawkley, ask for Van. (The road turns to the left. They will try to per- 
suade you to get to Selborne via the road to the right, for it is shorter. Do 
not. Sly route is the longer way. But, praise the flintstones, I saw but one 
pedestrian — really a child skipping — and not a motor or a bicycle all the time. 
There was nothing in a hurry the whole distance.) 
“ The road slopes up almost from the Station, a mild ascent, and you wonder, 
when you look back and see the country spread behind you to the dim undula- 
tions of the South Downs, why it is you have not been panting hard. The path 
seems to have carried you up. 
“At a glance, there are wide miles of tranquil, sunny England. You know 
what patriotism is then. 
****** 
“ Still above the world went the path right into a turquoise sky, which seemed 
close enough to be only a blue screen just behind the steep escarpments and 
ridges of grey sandstone. You thought, if you went far enough, you would go 
into it. The path was cut through grey rock, ancient architecture in ruins, 
fringed with ferns, festooned with dark ivy, and painted with sage-green and 
orange lichens. In the talus and humus below the rock the violet lamps of the 
ground ivy were shining ; wherever it was damp there was a mauve haze of lady’s 
smock, everywhere were yellow constellations of primroses, and now and then 
you stopped to gaze at what seemed a tiny hole in the bank which went right 
through the earth, and betrayed a fragment of the intense sky of the antipodes. 
It was a violet beneath the herbage. 
****** 
“ Did you ask whether I saw Selborne ? I did. I saw it struggling under 
the same old hanger of beech trees. There was the Plestor, a sycamore in the 
centre, rising to the old church, which is mostly hidden in an ancient yew. I 
saw the Spring at the end of the village. And I saw the Wakes, Gilbert’s old 
home. It is still there, and more also. It has now some interesting windows 
in pink and blue frosted glass. I may say I left Selborne at once. 
“ It is far better dreamed about at home. Just beyond the Spring a traction- 
engine smothered me in dust ; and when that was brushed off, a flying motor-car 
came straight at me, hooting as it came, and put the dust back again, and left 
a stink behind. I was on the main road to Alton, you see. I could once walk 
nearly six miles an hour. I know I tried hard to do it again.” 
We sympathise with Mr. Tomlinson, but if he will venture 
again, climb the zigzag or the Bostal to the Wadden and the 
