SELBORNIANA. 
157 
“No more the wet Sakiyeh wheel 
Above the cotton gleams and burrs, 
The shaduf-pole no longer stirs — 
Forsaken for the evening meal. 
“ And stooping from the heaven above, 
While all the air about us sings 
With music of ten thousand wings, 
Hies to her towery home the dove.” 
SELBORNIANA. 
Children’s Country Holiday Fund. — Two years ago (W..W, 1892, p. 
123) we brought before our readers the claims of this excellent Society, not, we 
are glad to know, without effect. We desire to do so again, and we can- 
not find a better way than by reprinting the following letter of the Bishop of 
London, which has appeared in the daily press : — “ The British Medical 
Journal told us a few weeks ago that the slow growth of the children in their city 
homes is more than made up by their two or three weeks’ stay in the country. 
.Anyone who feels the staleness of our London air will recognise how it must tell 
on the little denizens of the more crowded parts of the metropolis, those who are 
actis’ely engaged in the work of the fifty local committees of the Children's 
Country Holidays Fund can see the difference in the children when they return 
from the care of their “ cottage mothers.” The Council of the Fund makes no 
distinction of creed ; need of change is the only claim. Indeed, special arrange- 
ments are made that the children of Jews, Roman Catholics, or such Noncon- 
formists as may desire it, may be with those of their own religion during their 
holiday. Last year 28,589 children had not less than a fortnight’s fresh air through 
the fund. The parents contributed what they could, but the subscriptions of the 
public did not increase, and unless at least ;^5,ooo more is given for this summer 
many must be disappointed. The working expenses of the Society are exception- 
ally small, and every gift of ten shillings secures at least one child’s fortnight. 
Will your readers send donations to the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, the Hon. 
Treasurer, at lo, Buckingham street, Strand, W.C. ? ” 
Sir F. Leighton and Field Advertisements. — We have not received 
any report of the second annual meeting of the National Society for Checking the 
Abuses of Public Advertising, but we clip from the daily press the following 
remarks of Sir I'rederic Leighton, who was unable to be present:— “I am 
glad of this opportunity of assuring you in writing of my entire sympathy with 
the spirit which animates your Society. Nobody can resent more warmly than I 
do the vulgar bluntness of feeling which leads men to deface, or to lend them- 
selves to the defacing of, the charms of rural scenery with staring advertisements. 
I include those who lend themselves to this barbarism ; for the tradesman who 
pushes in this manner his pill, his plaster, or his nostrum is not more blameworthy, 
but indeed less, than he who hires out his meadow or his coppice for such a 
purpose, and earns a pittance at the cost of so much offence. Never more than 
in our overridden days was the soothing, restful atmosphere, that breathes from 
natural scenery, precious, needed. Never less than now can we afford to see its 
sweet silences invaded by these blatant blemishes of the strife of competing 
druggists and manufacturers, which, when we leave our towns, we would fain for 
a while forget. You will render good service if you abate this evil custom even a 
little.” 
Selbornians and Local Floras.— Our attention has been called to a 
passage on p. 140 of Nature Notes for July, in which writers of local floras are 
“ warned not to state exact localities, lest the indiscriminate collector should ex- 
terminate all the rare plants.” The Editor of Nature Notes is not responsible 
