252 
NATURE NOTES. 
affirmative reply to liis opening question “Is sport a fitting subject for poetry?” 
and to point to this large and representative selection in support of our view. 
In the West Cottntrj/ {Simpkm & Marshall) is the latest collection of essays 
by Mr. Francis A. Knight, whose previous volumes have received a welcome in 
these pages. The contents of this as of the earlier volumes are mainly reprints 
from the Daily Neivs and the Spectator, to both of which papers Mr. Knight is a 
valued contributor. This time, as the title implies, we are definitely confined to 
one portion of England — and an attractive portion it is, comprising as it does 
Clovelly and Exmoor, Winscombe and the Mendips. “The Country Life ” is 
one of the most suggestive of these essays, and one of the most Selbornian in spirit, 
although some may be scandalized at the author’s qualified defence of birds’- 
nesting — of course in moderation : “ Not every nest-rohber, it is true, is a lover of 
nature, but the birds’-nester who is a naturalist born soon wakens not only to the 
beauty, but to the significance of his fragile treasures.” That those who have 
most opportunities of becoming acquainted with nature are often the most igno- 
rant of her charms is only too true, and Mr. Knight lays due stress on the fact, 
suggesting that in time the County Councils may do something for the rustic 
enlightenment, by means of lectures and the limelight. At present, as we demon- 
strated in our last issue, the local bodies in most places — for correspondents have 
told us that the state of things we endeavoured to depict is general all over the 
country — are employing their energies mainly in destroying the material for obser- 
vation. There are many books of this kind, but so long as they are written by 
those who, like Mr. Knight, know what they are talking about and are able to 
express themselves in literary language, they are not likely to want readers, or to 
fail in attractiveness. The volume is appropriately illustrated. 
Sir Herbert Maxwell’s Post Meridiana : Afternoon (Blackwood, 6s. ) 
deals with matters other than those dear to Selbornians, but they also include 
much of interest to nature-lovers. “ Woodlands, with a postscript on London 
Trees” and “Gardens” deal excellently with their respective subjects; and 
“Trouting Tattle” and “ Salmon-flies” show that blending of the sportsman and 
the naturalist of which Charles Kingsley was a prominent type. An index makes 
the book additionally easy of consultation. 
In The Woodland Life, by Edward Thomas (Blackwood, 6s.) we have another 
volume of reprinted essays, and a pretty volume it is, with its clear type and red- 
lined pages. Perhaps the material is somewhat slender for a six-shilling book, 
but there is pleasant chat about a good many subjects, and ample evidence of 
careful observation. Mr. Thomas distributes his attentions more equally between 
birds and plants than do some writers of this class, and his notes are from nearer 
home than Mr. Knight’s — many from Richmond Park and other places near 
London. A year’s diary “in English fields and woods” shows much of the 
careful observation to which we have referred, but we are not quite sure that it 
was worth printing in full, although it contains some interesting notes. 
In Nature Noi es for 1893 (pp. 69-71) we printed an admirable paper by 
Mr. Ernest Ingersoll, entitled “Sport without a Gun,” which we quoted from 
another paper wherein it was said to be extracted from an American book styled 
Our Animal Friends. We were never fortunate enough to see a copy of this 
work, but now Messrs. Macmillan .send us a book by the same author, called 
Wild Neighbours (6s.), which confirms us in our view that in Mr. Ernest Ingersoll 
we have an important accession to the ranks of popular writers on Natural 
History. This is a more serious volume than those of which we have just been 
speaking, in that it is devoted to special studies of some particular groups of 
animals or kinds of phenomena, but it is full of interest, and especially acceptable 
as treating of transatlantic creatures, thus taking us somewhat out of the groove 
in which we are accustomed to run. “ Gray Squirrels,” “ The Skunk, calmly 
considered,” “The Badger and his Kin,” “The Hound of the Plains” (the 
coyote, or prairie wolf), “ A Natural New Englander ” (the woodchuck), and “ As 
Little Brother of the Bear” (“Brer Coon,” to quote the name by which he is 
known to readers of Uncle Kemus) are some of the titles of Mr. Ingersoll’s 
chapters; there are others on “ The Service of Tails ’’and “Animal Training 
and Animal Intelligence,” somewhat more general in treatment, but equally full 
