SELBORNIANA. 
weary in promoting the objects of the Society, and so late as October last we 
published an obituary notice of the Rev. Leonard Bloniefield from his hand. 
Mr. Whealcroft was not only an enthusiastic student of botany but he also took 
a keen interest in all branches of natural history. Only last year he read a paper 
on “ Polyzoa ” before the Bath Microscopical Society, of which he was President 
in 1889, and at the time of his death he was preparing a paper on “ Birds of 
Prey ” for the local branch of the Selborne Society. During the earlier part of 
his residence in Bath Mr. Wheatcroft suffered much from ill health, which pre- 
vented him from following his profession as a solicitor at all closely. He devoted 
his spare time to obtaining a practical acquaintance with the flora of the neigh- 
bourhood, and thus was able at the time of the meeting of the British Association 
in Bath in 1888 to contribute the article on “The Flora of Bath ” to the official 
Guide Book. 
A Word for the other Side.— Why does not Mr. Hudson (Nature 
Notes, 1893, p. 212), include in his excited censure the men whose cruelty 
supplies these feathers, and supplies them for the sake of gain ? and the merchant 
who as middleman takes another profit out of these beautiful birds? It is curious 
to read that “ men who live in a rougher world are sickened at the thought of it,” 
and yet men are the only instruments by which the cruelty can be performed, and 
the feathers obtained 1 Stop the supply and the demand ca/e/t/ not be satisfied. 
Does your Society really think that women would procure these feathers for them- 
selves if none were to be had in the shops? As things are now with respect to 
the buying of them, we may, I fear, safely say that three-fourths of the ladies who 
wear birds’ wings have not been taught sufficient natural history to know where 
they come from, or that they cost in any way more than the money paid to the 
milliner by themselves. If your .Society, or Mr. Hudson, would go to the root 
of the matter, and set the law in motion against the wretches who do all that he 
describes on the first page of his letter — killing these beautiful birds apparently 
with every circumstance of cruelty — the evil traffic would surely be brought to an 
end sooner than it can be by heaping invectives on the least guilty of those- 
concerned. 
Eleanor Grove. 
Tlie late Sir Harry Verney. — Selbornians will read with interest the 
following letter, addressed in P'ebruary, 1892, to our correspondent,' Mr. J. E. 
Whiting, by the late Sir Harry Verney, whose death took place last month. 
The letter is reproduced by Mr. Whiting’s permission. “When I read such a 
letter as yours in the Hiohgate and Hampstead Express, I thank God that the 
work of Mr. Sharpe and Mr. Ager in Middle Claydon School has not been 
unproductive, but that it produced and stimulated ability to take interest in and 
to describe so admirably and truly the habits of birds that I see on the lawn, and. 
on the oak and Scotch fir east of the churchyard, and of a squirrel that is running 
up the oak — all rejoicing in the melting snow and the returned green, under my 
eye while I am writing. I rejoice heartily in your close observation of the works 
of Nature — that is, the works of the God of Nature — so far more exquisite and 
beautiful than the most beautiful of those of art. The appearance of our dear 
Queen in her royal robes is less beautiful than the rose or the lily ; and the man or 
woman who loves the works of God is led naturally, and by sure sequence, to 
the love of God Himself. ... I am pretty well, considering my age, more 
than ninety years, and now the frost is going, I hope to resume my gentle rides — 
gentle ones, not like that of my thousand miles across the Pampas on wild 
horses, and in danger of Indians wilder still, more than sixty years since.” 
The Tennyson Band of Mercy (see p. 24). — Lady Tennyson is desirous 
that it should be known that she has from the first relaxed the rules as to birds’’ 
eggs and butterflies in favour of those members who make collections of these for 
study. She also gives bottles with the proper acids for speedily suft'ocating 
butterflies and moths. 
