152 
NATURE NOTES. 
published Nature Notes some considerable time back; by 
them it was forwarded to Mr. Elliot Stock, our more recent but 
not our present publisher ; and by him it was sent to the Editor. 
Since this, we have received from Miss Atkinson an expression 
of regret that her address was not noticed in our July issue ; this 
regret we share, but we can hardly be held responsible for it. 
Moreover, Miss Atkinson sends her letter to our present pub- 
lishers — not to the Editor’s address. All this trouble and delay 
might have been avoided by attending to the notice to correspon- 
dents printed in every number of Nature Notes. 
But now for the extracts from Miss Atkinson’s address. It 
is difficult to select where all is so good ; we should like to reprint 
it in full. Here, however, is her — and our — view of what mem- 
bership of the Society means : — 
“ Membership of the Selborne Society is, I take it, an open profession of love 
for all the wild things of Nature — the animals, birds, flowers, ferns, trees, streams, 
mountains. The one essential article of our creed is that all these things are good 
for us, as they come from the hand of Nature, and that they cannot be improved 
by us ; that only in humbly loving, admiring, and guarding these things can we 
show our gratitude for the great gift of them ; in short, that our fit attitude in 
presence of the winsome bird, of the tiny flower, of the lonely mountain crag, is 
reverence. And our duty grows out of our creed. We acknowledge that we can 
do nothing to make these gifts of Nature better or more beautiful. That is beyond 
us. But we all know, alas ! that we can do much to injure and deface, nay, to 
destroy them. Our duty is, therefore, because we love, to protect wild animals, 
birds, insects, flowers, trees, rivers, mountains from the injury, defilement and 
defacement of enemies, and from what are almost as bad — meddlesome friends.’' 
“ Aigrettes,” of course, come in for their share of attention, 
but we should like to see a gentle word in deprecation of the 
wearing of whalebone imitations thereof, so admirably executed 
as to be hardly distinguishable from the original. These are 
sometimes worn even by Selbornians, and the employment of the 
real thing is promoted thereby. The deception is not always 
detected, and “aigrette” wearers have been known to justify 
their conduct by a reference to “ Miss X, a thorough Selbornian !” 
Apropos of the use of birds as ornaments (?), Miss Atkinson tells 
an amusing story : — 
“ Women are not consistent, I am afraid. I know a prominent member of the 
.Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals who will tell you how busy she 
has been in preventing cabmen from over-driving horses, while in her hat she 
calmly flourishes aigrettes and stuffed sea birds. I once sat in a railway carriage, 
miserable — because a gentle-looking lady opposite to me had two out-spread birds 
in rigid positions stuck in her hat. Presently she began to talk to her friends, and 
said she had been to a delightful lecture on birds the previous evening : ‘ I am 
very much interested in that kind of thing, and so very fond of birds,’ she said. 
I hope she was not a member of the Selborne Society.” 
Miss Atkinson has a great deal to say on the protection of 
wild flowers, and very well she says it. She deprecates taking 
up plants by their roots, and rightly points out that the “protec- 
tion of flowers means much more than the protection of rare 
flowers.” Here are some practical hints : — 
