22 
NATURE NOTES. 
green have been narrowed, ever so little, by the man who wants 
more space for his poultry-run or pigstyes. It is possible that 
some of the less worthy members of the profession to which Sir 
Robert Hunter belongs are embittered at his unfolding points of 
law to laymen, which, for their own profit, they would rather 
had been left obscure. But the means must be made to serve 
the end, which is to equip, not only the now vast body of repre- 
sentatives, but their still greater electorate, with a guide to such 
knowledge as shall enable them to combat successfully an evil, 
the physical results of which come next to sickness and disease. 
These are strong words, but favourable as public opinion gener- 
ally now is to the preservation of open spaces, there can be little 
doubt that there exists among individuals of all classes of landed 
proprietors a tendency to tamper with public rights. The case 
for town and country is alike. Open spaces near towns are 
in more urgent and pressing need of preservation, and are 
consequently watched more narrowly ; but many villages have 
the possibility of becoming towns, and these have lost both 
commons and footpaths, too often from want of knowledge on 
the part of the inhabitants as to how to contest and retain their 
birthright. It is not saying too much, therefore, to hope that 
no County, District, or Parish Council will be without a copy of 
this valuable manual. In plain and intelligible language it 
unfolds the various points of law relating to every kind of open 
space, and every form of right of way. The scope of the work 
falls into these two main divisions, and we propose to give a 
necessarily limited, though it is hoped a sufficient, survey of 
each. 
A brief record is given of the various rights attaching to a 
common which can be enjoyed by the tenants of a manor, such 
as common of pasture, common of estovers (».<!., the right of 
cutting the gorse, grass and heather), common of turbary, or the 
right of cutting peat-turf, also the right of digging sand or gravel 
and of taking wood for the repair of buildings. But unless these 
rights can be proved to exist, the waste is no longer a common, 
and either that or the plea that sufficient pasture had been left 
for the tenants of the manor in compliance with the well worn 
statutes of Merton and Westminster the Second, have been the 
means whereby an enormous acreage of waste land beneficial 
to whole communities has been applied to the profit of individual 
owners. By an irony of fate in the form of agricultural depres- 
sion, not a little of that area is again lying waste, this time to 
the profit of no one. But the Commons Act of 1876, and the 
Commons Amendment Act of 1893, h«'ive absolutely forbidden 
the lord of the manor to inclose if he wishes to do so under the 
Statutes of Merton and Westminster the Second, save by con- 
sent of the Board of Agriculture (the successors to the Inclosure 
Commissioners as established by the Inclosure Act of 1845). 
Should he so endeavour to inclose, previous advertisement is 
necessary before he can apply for consent of the Board, and 
