36 
NATURE NOTES. 
“ Saint David and Chad,* 
It’s time to set beans if the weather’s ever so bad : 
If they’re not in by Benedickt 
They had better stop in the rick.” 
Mr. Swainson, in his Handbook of Weather Folk-lore, a charming little volume 
which appeared in 1S73, similar proverbs for peas : — 
“ David and Chad, 
Sow peas, good or bad.” 
and 
“ Saint Benedick, 
Sow thy peas or keep them in the rick,” 
but we do not find peas in Mr. Inward’s index. He has, however, as has been 
said, given us an excellent book, and no better is likely to be forthcoming until it 
reaches a third edition. 
SHORT NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
One of the prettiest sixpenny books we have ever seen is the Rev. Dr. Jessopp’s 
Pity the Poor Birds (S.P.C.K. ), and the author’s name is a guarantee that matter 
is well matched with manner in this dainty little volume. There are only two 
chapters, one on “ Starvation,” and a shorter one on “ Extermination,” but they 
sum up “the whole duty of man,” and, especially the second, of woman, with 
regard to our feathered friends. It is a book to distribute widely, not only as a 
school or class prize, or to Bands of Mercy, but in the drawing-room and the 
boudoir, to a place in which its elegant appearance fully entitles it. Here are its 
concluding words : — “The time has come when the cry should be raised without 
hesitation, ‘ Let there be no wearing of feathers of any sort or kind. Each and 
all shall be Nehushtan to us ; they are abomination ; we have worshipped these 
symbols of savagedom too long.’ Let but that cry go forth from you, my sisters, 
and surely you will not miss your reward. From hedgerow and copse and wood- 
land, gladder carols will greet you, and a fuller sense of thankfulness will be yours 
‘ \Yhen the sw'eet birds that sang for pity 
Jubilee for joy.’ ” 
Mr. AVarde Fowler has given, in a shilling pamphlet (B. H. Blackwell, 
Oxford), a delightful sketch of his search for The Marsh Warbler in Oxfordshire 
and Switzerland. Only a scholar and a naturalist could write such a paper, which 
was read last November before the Oxfordshire Natural History Society ; and Mr. 
M’arde Fowler’s claims to each of these titles need no demonstration. The 
marsh warbler has only of late years been fully recognised as a British bird, and 
no such careful study of its life and habits has hitherto been penned. The 
author has aimed “at giving those who have not yet met with the bird, a better 
chance of discovering it than they would gain from even the best handbooks,” and 
his success can hardly be doubted. 
“Of the making of verse there is no end.” It is not a j-ear ago since we 
noticed a volume by the Rev. M. ,S. C. Rickards, and still less since we quoted 
from Dr. Japp’s Circle of the Year, and now we have a new volume from each of 
them ! We cannot help saying, with all deference, that the fluency of verse-writers 
seems to us to militate against the permanence of their works, and the time- 
honoured criticism that “ the author would have done better had he taken more 
pains,” rises to our lips. Yet so Selbornian a writer as the author of “Songs of 
the Birds,” merits in Nature Notes the sympathetic treatment which he metes 
out to his subjects ; for example, here are the lines to the swallow : — 
March i and 2. 
+ March 21. 
