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NATURE NOTES. 
toral, the continual ploughing up of the soil has ever acted as a 
deterrent to their continuance. 
At the present time, when parish and district councils have 
but lately been established and endowed with considerable 
powers favourable to the maintenance of rights of way, Mr. 
Henry Allnutt, the Secretary of the National Footpaths Preser- 
vation Society, has done a good work in bringing out a small 
manual on the subject. 
It will be impossible to go further than to briefly indicate a 
few of the more important points, especially with regard to the 
law of footpaths, which Mr. Allnutt has brought forward. One 
obvious advantage of footpaths is the saving of time in getting 
from place to place. This ought to commend itself to our 
newest landed proprietors, who are generally successful business 
men, but who, as the compiler tells us, are far worse offenders 
in closing footpaths on estates than old county families and 
the aristocracy. 
Law expenses in contesting rights of way are always very 
heavy. It is therefore better to defend an action than to 
bring one. 
If a railway company desires to extinguish a footpath as 
interfering with the formation of a new road, the right of way 
must be clearly described in the Act sanctioning the construc- 
tion of the line. 
If a thing so intolerable to some landowners as a footpath is 
to be put up with at all, these lords of the soil have determined 
to make the way as unpleasant as possible to those using it, by 
the erection of barbed wire or fish-hook wire fences. These 
vestiges of mediaeval barbarity entail not only destruction of 
clothing but even personal danger. A perusal of the Barbed 
Wire Act (1893), printed on pp. 26, 27 of this manual, will show 
that as soon as barbed wire fences bordering any thoroughfare 
whatever can be proved a nuisance, steps may be taken for their 
removal. 
A misprint occurs on p. 28, w’here “ Vigo ” should read 
“ Virgo,” and the “ Finchley station of the L. & N.W.R.,” 
(p. 13) does not exist, the Great Northern Railway alone having 
a station there. 
A list of woodcuts of convenient stiles and rustic seats 
concludes the manual ; a concise index, however — the natural 
and indispensable termination to every book of reference — is 
here wanting to complete the work. 
By way of appendix it may be stated that we have received, 
through the kindness of Miss Octavia Hill, a couple of impor- 
tant circulars issued by the Kent and Surrey Committee of the 
Commons Preservation Society. One of these is an appeal to 
place Ham Common under the regulation of the Metropolitan 
Commons Act, the step which the authors of this appeal rightly 
consider so urgent should have been taken long ago. The other 
circular — which has more bearing on the subject under review — 
