72 
NATURE NOTES. 
whole time in courtship. If they did — well, “ I would I were a bird”; but they 
do nothing of the kind, they have many serious duties to perform. 
Some of those acquainted with Gilbert White’s views on the hibernation 
of birds, will, we expect, be somewhat surprised to learn that he did little more 
than echo what Aristotle said about two thousand years before. The whole 
chapter entitled “ Aristotle on Birds” is most fascinating, and makes one wonder, 
with Mr. Fowler, how the writer of the Ethics and Politics ever found time to 
pick up such an amount of information. 
The other chapters are all well worth reading, and we can heartily recommend 
Stimma- Studies of Birds and Books as a most interesting and delightfully 
written volume 
A. Holte Macpherson. 
FARM VERMIN.- 
What are “vermin”? Lord Palmerston defined dirt as “matter in the 
wrong place ” ; and in like manner we should have been inclined to say that 
vermin were creatures which intrude themselves where their presence is undesir- 
able. In this little book, however, the term is apparently taken to designate 
any quadruped which makes its appearance without being reared by man, and 
hence we are introduced to helpful vermin, which will probably appear to some as 
anomalous a term as wmuld be “ honest thieves.” This gives the book rather an 
unreal character, as if sundry rather slight sketches of wild life had been got 
together, and then the title devised to allow of- the collection being described as a 
“ handbook.” 
The list of animals thus brought into company is very miscellaneous, ranging 
from the red deer to the bat, while incidentally the owl and the kestrel are 
introduced, because they eat rats and mice. On the other hand, wq are given 
nothing about the shrew, nor about the common brown mouse, both of which 
fully deserve a place in such a catalogue, however its heading is to be understood. 
The papers being, as they are, by different authors naturally vary in merit. 
The two best are those on “The Weasel Kind,” and on “The Mole and 
Hedgehog,” which are by Mr. O. V. Aplin. In regard of the otter, however, 
— which is classed with the weasels — the editor, differing from his contributor, 
makes a statement which is rather startling — that this animal does not make fish 
the staple of his dietary, but cray-fish, and that if he does take to fish it is mostly 
to eels. This is certainly not our own experience, and it appears moreover to be 
at variance with the fact mentioned, also by the editor, on the very next page, 
that otters can be tamed and taught to fish for their master. Certainly it is not 
cray-fish or eels which they generally bring to him. 
Among the other writers. Sir Herbert Maxwell, as was to be expected, writes 
pleasantly and instructively of voles. The paper on the fox and badger is 
discursive in a high degree, and amongst other topics treats of the Ground Game 
Act and its effects upon hares and rabbits respectively. These animals appear to 
receive a somewhat excessive share of attention. Besides the above mention of 
them, they have a chapter to themselves, and are again treated to special 
sections in one of those on “ enemies to woodlands and nurseries.” Then two 
chapters indeed appear to be somewhat superfluous : it is in them that the red 
deer is introduced — with a picture — on the ground that he nibbles the boughs 
and bark of trees. 
The editor’s own contribution on bats, with which the frog and toad are 
associated, somewhat reminds me of the famous chapter on the snakes of Ireland. 
Practically, all that there is to say amounts to this : “ The influence they exert 
is altogether beneficial.” 
John Gerard. 
* Farm Vermin, Helpful and Hurtful, by various writers, edited by John 
Watson, F.L.S. London: William Rider and Son, Ltd., pp. ii., 85. Price 
2s. 6d. 
