SELBORNIANA. 
45 
whose father was known to all lovers of nature as one of the most humane as well 
as most enthusiastic of naturalists, and who has himself been always a warm 
supporter of the Selborne Society. The magazine under notice is evidently 
conducted on similar principles ; and in the February number is a strongly- 
expressed petition from the Rev. F. O. Morris against the destruction of young 
birds “under the pretence of bird’s-nesting.” 
Mr. Elliot Stock has attained a well-merited reputation as the publisher of 
a special class of literature dealing with the aesthetic rather than the scientific 
aspects of nature. Of these works, which have a considerable family resem- 
blance to each other, Idylls of the Field , by Mr. F. A. Knight, the author of By 
Leafy Ways, is a good example. It is a well-printed and beautifully illustrated 
little book containing a number of pleasant sketches, reprinted from the Daily 
News, on such subjects as “Winter in the Marshes,” “A Sea-bird’s Haunt,” 
“Cheddar Cliffs,” “The Heart of the Forest,” &c. Mr. Knight has many times 
been compared to the late Richard Jefferies, and although we cannot rank him as 
high as that inimitable observer of nature, it would be hard to mention any writer 
of the present day who has more closely inherited the spirit of the author of 
Wood Magic and The Gamekeeper at Home. 
Mr. H. W. Worsley Benison’s Haunts of Nature is a book issued by the same 
publisher, with a like “ get up,” and on similar topics. Mr. Kenison, however, 
as one would expect from a Botanical Lecturer to a Medical School, is somewhat 
more scientific in his method of dealing with nature. He treats in very pleasant 
fashion of such subjects as “Protective Mimicry in Insects” and “The Min- 
istry of Leaves;” but is not above saying “A Good Word for the Mole,” in 
which a very good case is made out for that “much-despised natural engineer.” 
The article on “ Wake-Robin” is so very like one of Mr. Grant Allen’s imaginative 
evolutionary discourses that it would perhaps have been well to allude to the 
work of the previous writer. Mr. Allen, however, is certainly not imitated in the 
very numerous didactic moralisings with which Mr. Benison intersperses his pages. 
A good example may be found on p. 144, in the series of sentences ending with 
a note of admiration. “ Plow suggestive . . . ! ” “ How it speaks . . . ! ” 
“ How it bids us . . . !” “How it tells us . . . !” “ How it urges us 
. . . ! ” “How it sings . . . ! ” &c., &c. We had imagined this sort of 
thing was rather out of date, even in homiletic discourses, but it is plain that some- 
people admire it, and even those who do not must not let it blind them to the 
many real merits of a pleasant little book. 
In connection with Selbornian literature we may remind our readers that in 
the March Magazines there are two articles of special interest to admirers of 
Gilbert White. In Murray's Magazine the Rev. J. Vaughan writes on “ Selborne 
Past and Present,” and the National Review contains an article on “ The Cen- 
tenary of White’s Selborne." Selborniana, notices of the Selborne Society, 
and of its Magazine are now of frequent occurrence in the journals of the day. 
The Daily News and the Daily Graf hie are prominent in that respect ; but the 
weekly paper which devotes most space to such matters is certainly the Richmond 
and Twickenham Times. The Editor, Mr. King, to whose energy the Lower 
Thames Valley Branch of the Selborne Society owes so much, seems to be per- 
petually on the qiti vive for “Selborne jottings” to which he devotes a most 
interesting column. 
SELBORNIANA. 
A Plea for the Primrose. — Now that “Primrose Day” is within a 
month’s distance, may I call attention to Mr. Britten’s remarks in your first 
number (p. 9), and appeal again to all true Selbornians to use their influence 
against the wholesale destruction of this lovely ornament of our woods and hedge- 
banks? It is not, of course, against the gathering of Primroses, no matter in 
what quantity, that we should protest ; but against the wholesale uprooting and 
wanton destruction of plants, which is far too common among those who collect 
