ANNUAL MEETING AND CONVERSAZIONE OF 
THE SELBORNE SOCIETY. 
HE annual meeting of the Selborne Society was held, as 
our readers are aware, on May 20, and was as usual 
very successful. There was a large attendance, and 
at the close of the meeting, which is fully reported 
below, those present found much to interest and amuse them 
in the programme of music provided, in the Short Talks on 
congenial topics, and in the very interesting series of exhibits. 
Once again members of the Royal Microscopical and Quekett 
Societies added greatly to the pleasure of the evening by means 
of their microscope. Mrs. G. E. Marindin contributed a very 
complete and charming series of wild-flower studies in water- 
colour, and other exhibits of interest to Selbornians were 
kindly lent by Professor Henslow, Messrs. F. W. Ashley, F.Z.S., 
R. Marshman Wattson, Mrs. Hensley, Miss F. E. Pilkington, 
Mrs. E. Phillips, and others. 
The President, Sir John Lubbock, in moving the adoption 
of the report, said : The Selborne Society is especially necessary 
in a populous country like our own. Our rarer animals and 
plants are gradually disappearing. Parliament has done what 
it could in passing wise laws, and County Councils are doing 
their best to carry them into effect. They can, however, effect 
comparatively little unless they have the general support of the 
community. We hear a good deal about the love of Nature, 
but it often takes an unfortunate form. It was said of King 
William Rufus that he “ loved the tall deer like a father ; ” but 
what he loved was killing them ; and I am afraid that the love 
of animals shown by many people is of that description. 
Again, many show their love of flowers by gathering them, 
sometimes getting very soon tired of them and throwing them 
away. I have often been asked why I do not gather flowers 
when I am so fond of them ; but I always say that is the 
very reason why I prefer to leave them where they are growing. 
The use of the word sport is, I think, unfortunate. A great 
deal more interest is to be got out of animals by keeping them 
alive than by putting them to death. Only recently a friend of 
mine saw seventeen nightingales stuck up on a gamekeeper’s 
cottage, and when he asked the gamekeeper why in the world 
he killed these charming little birds, the man said that they 
made such a noise at night that they kept his young pheasants 
awake. At the same time it must be confessed that the strict 
