8 
NATURE NOTES. 
was taken from among some fallen manuka. This bird is the 
foster-parent of our two cuckoos, which, however, do not arrive 
for two months yet. The nest, therefore, must have been built 
unusually early. It is dome-shaped, with a hole in the side. 
The material is chiefly roots of grass, thistle-down and wool, 
warmly lined with pheasant feathers. It is curious to reflect 
that before the advent of the European, this little bird must 
have built its nest of entirely different material. There was 
no grass then of the kind, I find, no wool, no thistle-down and 
no pheasants. 
Space, however, is limited, and this paper on August must 
close while the fuchsia is not yet fully leafed, and the dwarf 
heather is still fragrant and white. 
Tutira Lake, H. Guthrie-Smith. 
Hawkes Bay. 
GOOD LUCK TO IT!* 
{To My. Caine and his Bill pvohibiting Advertisements in Rural Places.) 
Oh, IMr. Caine, for this relief much thanks. 
As most benignant benefactor ranks 
The man who saves our own sweet countryside — 
At once our chiefest glory and our pride — - 
From all the many nauseating ills 
Which come out of advertisements of pills I 
Pills there must be, but when we chance to pass 
Through meadows and would rest our eyes on grass. 
Or pleasantly meander by the river. 
We would forget we’ve even got a liver. 
So here’s success to 5'Ou,-Sir, in your Bill 
To make it wrong to advertise a pill 
In rural spots in which we fondly now 
Associate “ three acres and a cow! ” 
And when success this rural venture yields. 
Do for the beaches what’s done for the fields ! 
Destruction of Wild Plants in America. — Mr. G. G. Graff, of 
Lewisburgh, Pennsylvania, writes in Science for November 3rd, 1893 : — “ The 
destruction of wild plants by students of botany and collectors has become 
appalling. Botany is becoming a universal study in the schools, and one hundred 
young people, each gathering one plant to use, and ten or twenty to throw away, 
soon exterminate the rarer plants. The solution of the problem is at hand. Let 
teachers use only cultivated plants in their work. Of these an abundance can 
always be had. Turn the attention of students from the mere collection and 
analysis of plants to the more important subjects of plant physiology and economic 
botany. The time has come for a change.” 
From ritnch, December 2nd, 1893. 
