192 
NATURE NOTES 
of continuing and propagating. Never was struggle for existence 
so keen as now, when so-called lovers of Nature peer into copse 
and hedgerow to pluck the earliest blossom to appear ; and he 
who has lit upon a rarity knows better than to publish abroad 
the exact locality where he has found it ; but, putting aside 
rarities, and considering now the many common wild flowers 
which can be met with everywhere, what security have we that 
these are not fast travelling on the road which will lead them 
into the ranks of those which are already scheduled “ rare ” ? 
It is in our keeping that we, whose minds are at last alive to 
disastrous possibilities in the future, see to it that we do all that 
lies in our power to remove any tendency towards this road. 
Enormous numbers of primroses are gathered every April, 
which twenty five years ago would have attracted but little 
attention. Is this distinction more than counterbalanced by the 
fertility of the plant ? Or is there a decrease in its numbers ? 
Certain it is that it has become within man’s memory extinct 
in many places ; but such places are those that are in close 
proximity to the towns. Are the country districts as prolific as 
ever ? Not only does the primrose have to provide the symbol 
of a political passion, but its roots are subjected to wholesale 
grubbing up, in order to decorate suburban back-gardens, no 
matter what the soil of such back gardens may be, and whether 
adapted or not to the growth of this copse and hedge-loving 
plant. But many wild flowers are subjected in the spring to 
immense destruction by children. Just now, one sees and could 
have seen during the last month and more, children returning to 
town laden with enormous sheaves of wild hyacinths. And yet, 
of the number plucked, how few ever reach the homes they 
were intended to beautify; how frequently, at the close of a 
tiring day, the children throw them away rather than trouble to 
carry them further. Fortunately, the bulbs are not easily 
removable without the assistance of a spade ; perhaps for this 
reason they often survive, even in the close vicinity of large 
towns. But the same children, who lack the training which 
should have taught them to protect and revere nature, will care 
little whether the plants they pluck by the handfuls are such as 
will suffer by their treatment, or whether they are such as will 
be uprooted or injured by thoughtless tugging at the plant in 
order to procure the blossom. 
In discussing the question of protecting plants by Act of 
Parliament, one must remember that Parliament’s object in 
passing any new law is not that of making oflenders or criminals. 
If you attempt to fine, for instance, all who interfere with plants 
in Kent except a few scheduled species, such as the daisy, 
dandelion and buttercup, you will make hundreds punishable, 
for instance, who will not know any difference, except size, 
between Beilis pcreniiis and ChrysanUiemum Icucantliemmn. In spite 
of text-books and other easily-understood works, the popular 
ignorance of wild flowers is really appalling. Ignorance in 
