94 
NATURE NOTES. 
evident acquaintance with the life of the dwellers in our woods qualifies him 
to give us more of the folklore still remaining than he has hitherto done ; will 
he not remember this while it is yet strong enough to resist the levelling in- 
fluence of the school board ? “ Very little will be left,” he says, “after another 
quarter of a century has elapsed ; ” let us then make the most of what remains. 
There are some good stories in the essay on “ Poachers and Poaching,” while 
in “Old Hedgerows” and “ Alders and Reeds,” the author is seen at his best. 
We do not quite understand the use of the word “sic” in such a sentence as 
“their sons and daughters profess to laugh at the superstitions (rrV) in which 
their parents still firmly believe : ” the meaning attached to it can scarcely be 
the usual one, as it is not affixed to any quotation. 
IMr. F. A. Knight is another of the Jefferies school whose work we have 
before had occasion to commend. Moorland and Sea (Elliot Stock, 5s.) 
contains some of the articles familiar to the readers of the Daily News, with 
others from different sources. Mr. Knight’s pencil gives effective aid to his de- 
scriptions of scenery ; and some of his sketches are very pretty. Four of the essays 
deal with Scotland ; one or two with historical localities, but the bulk are 
“ Selbornian ” in style and subject. We like best “ Sounds of the Night ” and 
“ The Bird’s-nester,” but all are pleasant reading, and cannot fail to interest the 
lover of nature. It is not Mr. Knight’s fault if he finds formidable rivals in the 
field which he has chosen ; the nature-loving public is a large and increasing one, 
and he will not and should not lack readers. 
A somewhat more original and livelier note is struck by Mr. Aubyn Trevor- 
Battye in his Piciures in Prose (Longmans, 6s.), drawn from “ nature, wild sport 
and humble life.” “ Prose ” such as Mr. Trevor-Battye’s has many affinities in 
poetry, and we are not surprised to find him actually dropping into verse — and 
ver)- good verse — now and then, as in the graceful dedication to his mother, the 
lines entitled “ Vesper ” which close the volume, and other little poems scattered 
through the book. Here and there we find him on the same lines as the “ Son of 
the Marshes ” — the chapter on “ The Witch in Kent,” for instance, may be corre- 
lated with “The Woodlanders” referred to above, who are presumably drawn from 
Surrey originals. But he strikes fresh ground in such essays as “With Carl of 
the Hill,” “a sketch from life” of a Scandinavian farmer, hunter and timber 
cutter, and his little daughter, a very living and pathetic portrait. “ The 
Land of the Great Spirit” tells of Mr. Battye’s wanderings in Manitoba, and 
these experiences in distant regions afford a pleasant contrast with his home 
travels in Norfolk, Essex and Oxford. “The Procession of Spring ” is delicate 
and fanciful ; but the botanist in the heart of a big city who had only one holiday 
a year, and that Christmas Day, and who had therefore never seen the bird’s-eye 
speedwell, strikes us as an improbability, and we are sure Mr. Battye does not 
think “ campylotropous, quintuplinerved, tetradynamous,” are names of flowers, 
though he writes as though he did. This is a very pretty and pleasure-giving 
book. 
Yet another volume, and again one consisting in part of reprints. If the 
appearance of books such as these under notice shows the existence of a large 
nature-loving public, the publication of so many essays on natural history in news- 
papers and magazines, is still stronger evidence of the popularity of the subject. 
If folk would only go one step further and observe for thentselves, little would be 
left to wish for. Mr. P. Anderson Graham’s All the Year 7 uith Nature (Smith 
Elder & Co., 5s.), is somewhat more systematic than the books already noticed. 
He begins with spring, when he tells us about birds and bird-nesting, then talks 
us into summer, through the pleasures of June ; harvest-time, and kindred sub- 
jects represent autumn, while winter brings its characteristic scenery and asso- 
ciations, and ends with “a winter’s tale.” Character sketches are dotted in 
here and there with no uncertain hand, and if we do not stray beyond the 
borders of England, we find — as every nature-loving Englishman knows — no 
lack of interest in the ordinary round of life, in the meanest flower that blows, 
or the commonest bird that sings. The four books just noticed are, indeed, no 
small evidence of this. In none of them is there any attempt at fine writing, 
none gives that impression of bookmaking which never fails to betray the hand 
