4 
NATURE NOTES 
Local Corresponding Secretary of the Selborne Society, as a 
channel of communication between that Society and local natu- 
ralists. Nature Notes, from month to month, will keep the 
corresponding secrerary aa couvant with the immediate direction 
of the Selborne Society’s energies, and it is hoped that the 
magazine, which will be sent gratis for at least a year, may be 
brought under the notice of the members of the local society. 
On the other hand the Council of the Selborne Society and the 
Editor of Nature Notes will always be glad to hear of the 
doings of the local societies and to do all in their power to assist 
them in any undertakings conducive to the preservation of 
natural beauties and the loving study of the world around us. 
It is not desirable that the relations between the Selborne 
Society and the Local Corresponding Secretaries should be 
hampered by any formal rules, but it is obviously essential that 
the Secretary (A. J. Western, Esq., 20, Hanover Square, W.) 
should be at once informed of the name and address of the Local 
Corresponding Secretary nominated by any Society that has been 
invited to appoint one. 
AD MISERIGORDljAM. 
T is an appeal to Christ’s teaching of mercy that I make 
in drawing the attention of the members of the 
Selborne Society to the following matters. Let us 
hope that the new century upon which we are entering 
•will be signalised, amongst other things, for an increase of love 
and care for all innocent and beautiful life, that the century 
that follows on may bless and not curse us. 
First, about the “ murderous millinery.” One saw with 
regret last month in the Paris windows that, though riband 
trimmings for hats and toques were more abundant, and though 
it was evidently thought a little less savage to put a wild beast 
biting its own body, round the throat of a fair woman than to 
decorate her head with dead humming birds, there were, never- 
theless, a good number of egret plumes, and plumes of birds of 
paradise still used for decoration, and the poor little Procne had 
been cruelly trapped to supply ornament to evening skirts and 
dinner dresses. 
I do not know what particular additional charm the young 
gentleman at a dance can get by suddenly discovering that the 
girl he thought so innocently gentle and fair is little better than a 
bird stuffer’s shop, and moves clad in the robes of death. But I 
am sure that the slaughter of the innocents cries to Heaven, and 
no one who is thoughtful can believe that such ornaments become 
a Christian lady. As a clergyman I have often to administer 
the Sacrament to people whom I know to be kind and good, in 
