130 
NATURE NOTES. 
sometimes quaint enough, like the green woodpecker on p. 129, have life in them, 
and range over a great variety of subjects ; the publishers, who have kindly sup- 
plied us with two examples, have not included any of the flower drawings, which 
are among the best. But here are “Rosie and the Drake” — two inseparable allies 
during the latter’s bereavement, although the introduction of another duck some- 
what interrupted the strange friendship. Rosie was brought up by some ladies 
who “ would sometimes dress her up in their hats and shawls, and even take her 
indoors, teaching her to drink coffee from a cup, neatly, as a human being would : 
an art which she has never lost.” Mr. Leslie repudiates the notion that donkeys 
like thistles as “ a gross fiction ; ” at any rate, Rosie refused to touch one on any 
consideration. 
We have spoken of the flower drawings, which are not only pretty and in- 
teresting, but instructive. This is especially the case with the three studies of 
the teasel, with the accompanying remarks; the figures of winter aconites, showing 
their mode of development, reminding us of the illustrations of Miss Agnes Fry’s 
paper on the woodsorrel, published in these pages three years ago, and making 
us regret that our contributors seem so interested in birds that other objects 
Rosie and the Drake. 
receive insufficient attention ; the seedpods of lilies, irises, and other plants, and 
others. Yes, Mr. Leslie has been in Arcadia, and we would fain stay longer in 
its pleasaunces, among the flowers and birds, or go with him on a visit to 
Kelmscott Manor, to be entertained by William Morris, and gather pink burnet 
roses, which are not so uncommon as he seems to think. But Mr. Alfred Austin 
beckons us towards “the garden that he loves,” and herein too we shall find 
much to delight us. 
Swinford Old Manor must be in every way “a desirable residence.” Ap- 
proached through “ an old elm avenue, its grey stone frontage almost smothered 
in creepers up to the very top of its three rounded gables,” having “ the blended 
charm of simple harmonious form and venerable age,” it is no wonder that Mr. 
Austin recognised in it “the haven of his hopes and the fulfilment of his most 
fastidious dreams.” We regret that space does not allow us to reproduce the 
illustration — one of the many which adorn this volume — which bears out this 
description ; but it is the garden, rather than the house, which claims our notice. 
Mr. William Robinson, whose English Flower Garden we noticed last year. 
