THE DUTIES OF SELBORNIANS. 151 
useful work. Let us also take care that, so far as we have the 
power, water troughs for cattle and dogs are put up in all our 
villages and market places. We shall thus prevent much need- 
less suffering and be doing Selbornian work. 
Eliza Brightwen. 
THE DUTIES OF SELBORNIANS* 
T is well that folk should from time to time be reminded 
of their duties, and Selbornians are not exempt from 
the common lot. Mrs. Brightwen pointed out some of 
these in her speech at the Annual Meeting of the 
Selborne Society — which we reproduce in this number — and Miss 
Blanche Atkinson gives an admirable summary of them in an 
address lately delivered before the Barmouth Branch of the 
Society. We propose to lay before our readers some extracts 
from this address, prefacing these by a little grumble on our own 
account. 
Gilbert White’s great work will always stand as a monument 
of careful attention and minute observation, and these qualities 
should characterise his followers. When these are wanting, 
observations are defective in value, statements become exagge- 
rated and consequently untrustworthy, trouble is caused, temper 
is tried, time is wasted. The three last-named results are unduly 
entailed upon the Editor of Nature Notes by the inattention of 
many of his correspondents. It can hardly be their inability to 
read, because they are are all able to write. Yet it is difficult, 
except upon some such supposition, to account for the steady 
neglect of the simple directions to correspondents which we have 
now for years printed in each number. There is no single 
direction which is not neglected, often many times a month. 
Subscriptions are sent to the Editor ; contributions for insertion 
and books for review find their way to the Secretary of the 
Society or to the publisher (by preference to a former publisher) ; 
correspondents request private answers to their questions ; — in 
fact, it would seem as if the making of rules was an incentive to 
breaking them. 
The vicissitudes of our copy of Miss Atkinson’s pamphlet 
afford an excellent illustration of “ How not to do it.” “ Books 
for review should be sent to the Editor,” says the rule, and the 
address follows. But this pamphlet — for which we had previously 
written to its publishers, Messrs. Simpkin and Marshall, without 
eliciting any response — -was directed to Messrs. Sotheran, who 
* Whai are the Duties of Selbornians? By Blanche Atkinson. London: 
Simpkin and Marshall. Price 4d. 
