NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
57 
for which was demonstrated sixteen years ago l>y the rapid exhaustion of the first 
edition. It will serve admirably as a first book for the outdoor student of Irish 
bird life. As, however, it was well received so long ago we cannot help thinking 
that this new edition might well have been better. There is no index, and, in 
addition to three pages actually labelled “ Odds and Ends,” the Introduction, full 
of valuable matter as it is, has such an entire absence of arrangement as to deserve 
the same name. Again, it should be possible by now to replace the calendar 
compiled from White and Mark wick — not, stiictly speaking, at .Selborne, but at 
Selborne and Catsfield — by one based on Irish observations. Lastly, the binding 
seems to us unnecessarily heavy for a book that might well be made a pocket 
companion. We hope Mr. Benson will note these grumblings against the third 
edition. 
From a Middlesex Garden: a Book of Garden Thoughts. By Alfred II. Hyatt. 
Prefatory note by the Hon. Mrs. Boyle. With Three Drawings by Mary 
Tourtel, and other Illustrations. Philip Wellby. Price ys. 6d. net. 
We confess to a feeling of disappointment with reference to this addition to 
the now numerous kooks about gardens. The binding is charming, the volume is 
delightfully light ; a beautiful frontispiece raises pleasurable anticipations ; as we 
turn the pages we see many an apt quotation recalling Mr. .Sieveking’s In Praise 
of Gardens; but many of the three hundred pages are well-nigh blank; there 
is a great deal of original verse of no very high order, and a series of brief notes 
in which there is little of garden and less that is distinctively Middlesex. Mr. 
Hyatt has the lesthetic sense of the poet so that he has naturally many pretty 
little phrases of his own, whilst his enthusiasm is undeniable and his reading wide, 
but yet we leave his pages with a sense of thinness. 
The Naturalist's Directory, 1902-3. L. Upcott Gill. Price is. 6d. net. 
There is but little to be said as to the new issue of this invaluable address- 
book. It follows the excellent model of previous editions and its errors are chiefly 
those arising from new addresses not having been sent to the publishers. 
Report of the Kent and Surrey Committee of the Commons and Footpaths Preserva- 
tion Society for 1 900- 1 . 
Amidst a record of much estimable work accomplished at a very moderate 
monetary expense, we note with special interest references to Croham Hurst, and 
the formation, under the auspices of Mr. Keatley Moore and Mr. E. A. Martin, of 
a new centre at Croydon, to the opposition to the new laboratory in the Richmond 
Old Deer Park, and to the regulation of Ham Common, and the extension of 
Brockwell Park, these last illustrated by charming views. Certainly there is no 
local body in the two counties which more deserves the support of the true lover 
of his country than this Committee, whose office, by the bye, is at i. Great 
College Street, Westminster. 
Received : — The Victorian Naturalist, for November, December and January’, 
The Naturalist, The Naturalist's fournal. Science Gossip, Humanity, The 
Animals' Friend, The Animal World and Bees for January. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
The Great Bat, or Noctule. — In the early part of last September, at 
dusk, I observed a great bat, or noctule, fly just over the houses here, and 
immediately return and disappear. Is not this an unusual proceeding on the 
part of the noctule? I have always understood its habitat to be amongst old 
trees, and its “ hunting ground ” the higher regions of the atmosphere. Anyhow, 
I have never before seen one in such close proximity to human dwellings. 
Buckhurst Hill, JOHN HoRNE. 
* February 6, 1902. 
Squirrels Playing Havoc. — Referring to Mr. Edmund Thos. Daubeny’s 
remarks in the February number, I would refer Mr. Daubeny and your readers 
lo the late Mr. W. C. Stillman’s letter in Nature Notes of August, 1900, in 
