214 
NATURE NOTES. 
enough to be able to pourtray from actual experience the delights 
which less favoured readers can only enjoy from descriptions. 
Each book is illustrated and attractively got up ; indeed, if we 
were anxious to make some garden-lover happy by a present 
of a book, the part of Paris would not be easy to play. Apart 
from the interest of the subject, each writer knows how to employ 
the English language, and each has read and remembered much 
that other garden-lovers have done and written. 
We may begin with Mrs. Boyle’s dainty little book — a com- 
panion to Days and Hours in a Garden, which was noticed in 
Nature Notes for 1890, p. 57. What was said in praise of the 
former work is equally true of this, while the hint then given as 
to the spelling of the Latin names must be repeated. If l\Irs. 
Boyle, failing other help, would allow us to look through the 
proofs of her next book, we would save her from such disfigure- 
ments as “serastium,” sysirhinchium,” “flexiosa,” “pomefera,” 
“ scylla,” and “sandades” — this last entirely baffles us, though 
the context suggests scabiosa. 
This volume is a record of observations made in a garden 
near INIaidenhead. In the forefront of the book, at the end of the 
preface, is a charming tribute to “ the gardener, Jesse Foulk, 
by whose rare skill this plot grew into a Garden of Pleasure, 
whose ceaseless care has maintained its charm for three and 
twenty summers, and who completes the thirtieth year of his 
devoted service on the 22nd of l\Iay.” This praise of a fellow- 
labourer has a pleasant sound in these days, and suggests the 
old saying “good mistresses make good servants;” and Mrs. 
Bo}’le’s wise words as to the recognition of the share which a 
good gardener has in bringing about the desired ends, should be 
laid to heart by all who possess so invaluable a help. 
As might be expected, there are true Selbornian touches 
here and there, such as this : — 
“ In the winter after Christmas, the holly trees in the garden shone scarlet, 
loaded as they were with berries. AVe had planned to cut away several branches 
of them, but until the birds had stripped the fruit, the gardener’s knife was not to 
be lifted for the pruning. Yet scarcely had the wise thrush began to feast, when 
down there swooped upon the hollies such flocks of fieldfares from the open countr)’, 
that in a day the trees were bare, so the poor throstles — to whom of right the 
garden fruits belonged — starved, and were found dead in numbers. The motto of 
wild Nature is always necessarily, ‘ Live, and let die who may.’ And thus 
there is many a small tragedy enacted often in the garden.” 
Birds have a prominent place, as is fitting, in this Garden of 
Pleasure : — 
“ All winter through up to the end of March, or longer, coconuts ” — we hope 
E. V. B. will accept this spelling as more correct if less usual than her own — 
“hang from the’ rose arches for the titmice. The hole is alway made in the lower 
part, so as to discourage the sparrows, who do not fancy hanging head downwards 
(it is not that they could not do it, for there is nothing they cannot do if they try). 
For a long time they did not understand that coconut was good. But un- 
fortunately a nuthatch let fall some crumbs of it one day ; and then the sparrows 
found out how nice it was.” 
Readers of N.ature Notes will remember that E. V. B.’s 
