54 
NATURE NOTES. 
A Fisherman Naturalist. — Last summer, while on my holidays, I made 
the acquaintance of a most interesting man. He lives in a small three-roomed 
cottage in a little out-of-the-way village — composed of about six cottages — on the 
Ayrshire coast. I was taking a long country walk one day, and chanced to pass 
through the village mentioned. Outside one of the cottages I saw a fisherman 
mending his nets. Being rather tired, and feeling I would like a little rest, I 
started, in a casual manner, a conversation with the man. We talked about 
different things, and during our little chat he dropped remarks that made me 
think he knew something about the birds and animals in the neighbourhood, and 
I found, on asking him, that he was a bit of a naturalist. He told me that from 
his boyhood he had always had a strong liking for natural history, and that he had 
made a collection of the different birds, insects, eggs, &c., he had found. On my 
telling him I should like to see what he had done, he took me into his cottage. 
One of the three rooms is set apart for his museum ; the walls are lined with cases 
upon cases of beautifully stuffed birds, his own handiwork. In a corner of the 
room stands an old bureau, in the drawers of which he has his collection of eggs, 
neatly arranged ; above the bureau is a glass case, in which he has insects and 
fishes preserved in spirits, and placed on the walls, wherever there was space 
enough, I noticed cases of mounted butterflies, moths, and beetles. He has also a 
collection of the different kinds of rocks found in the neighbourhood, and some of the 
finer specimens of serpentine he has polished, by the aid of sandstone and water 
and the ball part of his thumb. I also saw a small collection of fossils and plants, 
which he has made. On a table, in the middle of the room, I noticed a couple of 
birds, and prepared bird skins, as well as a nice little microscope in a case, which 
a gentleman passing through the village had sent him as a present. This fisher- 
naturalist is fond of saying that he has never killed any creature except when it 
was necessary for his collection ; of course this remark does not hold good in the 
following of his trade ; but the man has to fish in order to live. He has only 
found books necessary in the naming of his collection, and every specimen has a 
little label gummed to it on which is its scientific and common name. He says 
that people should study natural history, not by reading books, but by observing 
things for themselves. The sight of what this man has done, without money or 
friends to help him, shows what can be accomplished when a man is a true lover 
■of nature. 
Dumharion. Robert F. McCo.\neli.. 
Feeding the Birds. —Few bird-lovers, I imagine, wish to feed the vora- 
cious starling and sparrow, these being already too numerous. Therefore, in hard 
weather it is well to strew the bits of meat and scraps intended specially for the 
thrushes, and also for the blackbird, hedge-sparrow, wren, and robin, under the 
hedges or close to the walls of the garden, where the former birds do not search. 
During the late frost I found that apples and pears, more or less decayed, were 
greatly appreciated by all the birds, from tits and finches up to starlings and rooks. 
To the soft-billed birds particularly the fruit is a boon when every moist thing out 
of doors is frozen hard. 
IVeston-su/'er-Mare. T. P. 
Bird Netting (p. 17).— For a couple of years I lived at Southend. While 
living there I often took a walk on Sunday into the country, and was distressed to 
see so many loafers bird-netting. I have often seen as many as a dozen groups 
of them, in different fields and along the shore, netting the poor little birds. They 
were there Sunday after Sunday, and were never interfered with. For all I know 
they are there yet. 
Dumbarton. Robert F. McConnell. 
The late W. G. Wheatcroft. — On Christmas Eve, at the age of 60, 
passed away .Mr. W. G. Wheatcroft, the founder and first honorary secretary 
of the Bath Branch of the Selborne Society. To Mr. Wheatcroft is due the 
entire credit of the establishment of the Society in Bath in the early months of 
1887, and his article, “ How to form Branch Societies,” appears in the Selborne 
Letters for September of that year. Since that time he has thrown himself 
heartily into the work, and by pen and personal influence and labour was never 
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