148 
NATURE NOTES 
of disastrous and scarcely accidental fires. Passing the 
ornamental lake, crowded with water-lilies and dotted with 
water-fowl, the journey was continued to the house, where Mrs. 
Brightwen received the party, on the spot where at lunch time 
the squirrels wait for nuts. After tea Mrs. Brightwen introduced 
the visitors to her pets, described her rarest plants in the 
conservatory near at hand and then made a tour of her museum. 
Here many creatures, whose interesting histories have been 
written, are preserved, the mungoose, the monkeys, the sacred 
beetles and numbers of others. Not the least noticeable feature 
of the collection is the series of small skulls, and the objects 
illustrating Biblical history, though not necessarily of a natural 
history character, must not be passed over. 
The proceedings were enlivened by the advent of a large 
broad-nosed eel, discovered, shortly before, making a journey of 
discovery in one of the meadows. It was a gigantic fellow 
upwards of four feet long, and during the evening it was carried 
off to the Zoological Gardens by a keeper who arrived for the 
purpose. 
Saying goodbye to Mrs. Brightwen, the party paid a visit to 
the gardens and greenhouses, and passed the quiet spot where 
in the early mornings birds and voles come boldly to be fed at 
Mrs. Brightwen’s hands. The strange flowers of the varied 
species of Aristolochia reared under Mr. Odell’s care created con- 
siderable interest, while the startling appearance of some of the 
gourds was enough to arrest attention. In one species the 
orange fruit splits into three lobes and the seeds covered with 
red pulp hang down like clots of blood. Mr. Odell had also 
hybrid poppies of his own producing to show, and added to the 
indebtedness of the party to him by pointing out the rare British 
plants which find a home in the open gardens. 
Wilfred Mark Webb. 
NATURE NOTES IN SKYE. 
HERE is a curious contrast, as regards natural history 
interest, between the coasts of Skye and its interior. 
The latter is strangely destitute of animal life ; you 
may walk all day about its jagged, rock-strewn hills 
and wild valleys, and see scarcely a sentient thing. The writer, 
in the course of a day’s ramble, observed the fauna of the island 
— as represented only by a toad, a frog, and a few rock pipits. 
True it is that golden eagles are occasionally seen, but in very 
small numbers — and lucky is the man who may discern one 
through his field-glasses in the course of two or three days’ 
wanderings. 
The impressions of stern desolation, and of lifelessness, are 
