196 
NATURE NOTES. 
would think, for a good many years, and yet nine persons out of ten in one town 
or city, and two out of three even in the country, seriously suppose, for instance, 
that the buds upon trees are formed in the spring ; they have had them within 
sight all the winter and have never seen them. . . . But perhaps the best 
of us could hardly bear the system of tests unconsciously laid down by a small 
child of my acquaintance. The boy’s father, a college-bred man, had early 
chosen the better part, and employed his fine faculties in rearing laurels in his own 
beautiful nursery gardens, instead of in the more arid soil of court-rooms or 
state-houses. Of course the young human scion knew the flowers by name before 
he knew his letters, and used their symbols more readily ; and after he got the 
command of both he was one day asked by his younger brother what the word 
“idiot” meant, — for somebody in the parlour had been saying that .somebody 
else was an idiot. “ Don’t you know,” quoth Ben, in his sweet voice, “ an idiot 
is a person who doesn’t know an arbor- vitre from a pine, — he doesn’t know 
anything.” 
Birds are so greatly the favourites among naturalists that we 
are grateful to anyone who, like Mr. Crawford, will give the 
flowers a turn. He does not, like so many popular writers, re- 
peat at second or third-hand certain stereotyped quotations from 
the herbalist whom it is usual to style “ dear old Gerarde,” nor 
does he fill up his space with equally hackneyed fragments of 
verse ; he goes straight to the flowers and the places where they 
grow, and finds they have plenty to say for themselves. “ In 
the Woodlands,” “In the Links,” “Up the Glen,” “On the 
Mountains,” such are the titles of some of his chapters ; others deal 
more definitely with individual plants, as “The Bluebells,” “ Whin 
and Broom,” “ Marguerites and Poppies,” and of course, being in 
Scotland, “ Thistles ” and “ The Heather.” There is nothing 
second-hand about this book ; Mr. Crawford writes of what he 
has seen and known, and while always accurate, his style is 
artistic enough to please those who complain — there are such — 
that Richard Jefferies was a little too photographic. 
To our own readers the Selbornian spirit manifested on so 
many pages of Mr. Crawford’s book will prove a powerful recom- 
mendation. He is neither a fanatic nor a faddist : he does not 
wish to prevent the children gathering daisies and buttercups, 
and describes with keen sympathy their quest for the “ cheeses ” 
afforded by the receptacle of the thistle. Yet he is continually 
enforcing the lesson which some of us are doing our best to teach — 
that our rare birds and beasts and flowers should be among our 
most cherished possessions , and should be carefully and lovingly 
guarded against danger of extinction, the indifference of pro- 
prietors and the greed of gamekeepers, who are often “ ready to 
supply whatever is wanted for a consideration,” and even to guide 
the more liberal to the spot “ where the rarities grow ; ” these, 
and the latter more than the former, are the forces which bid fair 
to destroy our rare alpine plants. “ The footsteps of greed dese- 
crate the stillness, and the hand of greed lays more waste even 
than curiosity or false enthusiasm. Where so many are anxious 
to possess and willing to pay, there are sure to arise sellers ; and 
so quite a trade goes on.” 
“ It might seem quixotic to suggest a close time for f.ire and beautiful plants 
to be fixed, as in the case of animals at the breeding season, when they are 
