THE BOOKSHELF. 
249 
lated on the wire, us may be imagined, it began to overbalance, 
and swing round on to the under side. The station-master, 
noticing the impending calamity, and desirous of encouraging 
the ingenuity of the birds, suspended a long piece of string 
parallel with the wire, and so prevented their tottering structure 
from falling on to the platform below. With this slight assist- 
ance the birds soon piled up the mud until it reached the glass, 
and having once firmly cemented the wall of their prospec- 
tive habitation on one side to the roof, further progress was 
rapid, and in four or five days the walls of the hanging house 
were completed, and after the usual details of internal fittings 
were arranged eggs were laid, and a young brood successfully 
reared. 
The nest was only some eight or nine feet from the station 
platform, and in full view of a platform seat only a few feet 
away ; but in spite of the constant presence of railway pas- 
sengers and platform officials, the birds continued steadily at 
their structural operations, affording much interest to the 
station-master and his staff. 
It may be added that few stations in England can compare 
with that at Snainton, in Yorkshire, for the beauty of its appear- 
ance, due to the tasteful way in which the station garden has 
been arranged and the station buildings ornamented. This 
house - martin was evidently a bird of aesthetic as well as 
inventive mind, and it was a graceful compliment which it 
paid the station-master, in selecting his station for its novel 
and successful experiment in nidification. 
Philip Burtt. 
THE BOOKSHELF. 
Although we have done our best to keep pace with the increasing amount 
of literature which finds its way to our shelves, we have still a number of books 
which have not received notice. In some cases this has been delayed because we 
wished to give a fairly long review of the book, with the result that nothing has 
been said about it. But now, at the end of the year, and at a time when the 
present occupant of the editorial chair is leaving that post, it seems desirable to 
clear up arrears, and, even though late, to recommend such books as deserve 
recommendation to the notice of our readers. 
Among these Mr. Ellacombe’s Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare 
(Edwin Arnold, los. 6d.) holds a high place. Mr. Ellacombe has all the qualifi- 
cations necessary for writing a work of this kind — he is a gardener, an archaeolo- 
gist, a botanist, and a litterateur ; and his book shows evidence of each of these 
factors. The subject is not new to him, for two editions have preceded this ; but 
it is not too much to say that, in its elegant presentment as well as in the 
charming illustrations, both of plants and places, with which it is adorned, this is 
practically a new book. It is at once readable and learned — a too rate combina- 
tion ; and whether regarded as a book for the naturalist, the student, or the 
drawing-room, will be found adequate to any requirements made upon it. 
We cannot say as much for Mr. H. W. Seaget’s Natural History in Shake- 
speare's Time (Elliot Stock), a clumsy-looking book of extracts from contemporary 
