192 
NATURE NOTES. 
lowlander fond of his gun (whether he can go in spirit, or only longs to go, 
with the author to the ptarmigan heights), will read with sympathetic interest 
of that delightful mixed shooting to be enjoyed on “ the fringe of the moor.” 
And the chapter on records and remarks shows us what healthy preserving will 
do for the numbers of one individual species despite hard legitimate shooting. 
For a sportsman to kill 1,036 grouse to his own gun in one day is perhaps an 
artificial test, but we can arrive at only one conclusion from the fact of a moor 
of under 12,000 acres yielding for seven years an average of 6,000 birds a year, 
notwithstanding that this period included two very bad seasons, viz., 1891, when 
only 1,826 birds were killed, and 1892, when there was no shooting. 
-Mr. Saintsbury teaches us to put this enormous food supply to the best 
advantage, and writes as usual a charming and instructive, as well as an amusing 
essay. 
The very beautiful plates drawn by Mr. A Thorburn, under the supervision 
of the sportsman-author, would of themselves make the book a treasure to 
naturalist and sportsman alike. While all are pleasing, the three plates of 
ptarmigan and ptarmigan scenery, perhaps, please us most — though “The 
Shadow of Death” may look fanciful, “Old Grouse on Tops” is a beautiful 
picture, and in “ On the Wall,” we have a clever pourtrayal of a cold wintry 
scene. 
O. V. Aplix. 
SHORT NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
We are delighted to see that Mrs. Brightwen’s j\Io>e about Wild Nature, 
which we noticed at length in Nature Notes for 1893 (P- I 4 )i has passed into a 
shilling issue. Both author and publisher are to be thanked for this boon, but 
we confess that we shall not be satisfied until the earlier volume is again acces- 
sible at the same price. There is no need for further commendation of a book 
which already finds a place on the shelves of most Selbornians, and which will 
assuredly attain greater popularity now that it is accessible at a price which brings 
it within range of the most limited purse. 
JValton and some Earlier Writers on Fish and Fishing, by R. B. Marston, 
pp. XXV., 264. 8vo. (Elliot Stock, 1894. Price 5s.) Few more delightful 
works than the present could be found for those whose bookish tastes lie in the 
direction of our sporting literature of former days — those “Country Content- 
ments,” written chiefly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which have in 
them the power to charm so many' of us, whether we be anglers, gunners or field 
naturalists. And though this is more especially a book about fishing-books, yet 
it is pre-eminently one for those who, like Dr. Prime (p. 54), “ find far more in 
fishing than mere fishing.” In it we can pick up wrinkles as to how St. Patrick 
rid Ireland of snakes, and how to catch the hern and the otter or “ water wolfe,” 
and learn something about the poult (or burbot), of the breeding of crevis (or cray- 
fish), and anew orchard and garden, including the husbandry of bees. The book 
well fulfils its object of making Walton and a few earlier writers known to some 
to whom they are only names. Those, too, who know their Walton well will find 
some interesting facts in the sketch of his life and times. We are introduced 
also to the celebrated “ Treatyse ” of Dame Juliana Berners, to Barker’s Delight, 
and to the works of Leonard Mascall and Gervase Markham, &c. We are told 
something about the principal editions of Walton’s Complete Angler, and are 
warned how not to buy a spurious “early” edition, made, like so much more 
worthless trash, in Germany'. A perfect first edition sells at from £200 to £300, 
but as Mr. Marston remarks sadly, “ All good Waltons go to America.” 
O. V. A. 
The younger Mr. Weller’s knowledge of London was “extensive and pecu- 
liar,” and as regards the environs we find in Mr. Walker Miles an expert whose 
acquaintance with foot-paths appears quite unapproachable. By what extra- 
ordinary faculty it is that he manages to discover the many curious and little-used 
by-ways which he has described it passes our comprehension to determine. 
