202 
MATURE NOTES 
most successful Nature-study Exhibition in London. Mr. Wallace suggests 
that no better place could be found for a school — normal or otherwise — of 
‘ Nature Study,’ and that it could be made the centre for English nature-study 
teaching. He also favours the establishment of a Gilbert White Memorial 
Library in connection with the school. The number of such books is by no 
means small, and the list of works on Natuie-fore is every year being added to. 
Moreover, there are considerably over eighty different editions of the ‘ Natural 
History ’ already published, and these would form a valuable section of such a 
library. 
“ A better proposal than that of Mr. Wallace’s would be difficult to suggest, 
and all those interested in the recent and very urgent movement for ‘ Nature 
Study’ will earnestly hope the matter will assume practical shape in the establish- 
ment of the Selborne School for Nature Study.” 
The Preservation of our Wild Flowers. — Apropos of 
the papers on the subject in our last issue, Mr. Philip Cochrane 
writes to mention that visitors to his garden of wild flowers at 
Catford Bridge would do well, if possible, to make a previous 
appointment with him. His address is 13, Marlowe Road, 
Anerley, S.E. 
Mr. H. Stuart Thompson, F.L.S., Hon. Secretary of the 
Watson Botanical Exchange Club, also writes calling attention 
to the fact that the plants chiefly collected by that Club are such 
“ critical ” species as water crowfoots, roses, brambles, mints, 
willows, rushes, sedges, hawkweeds, pondweeds, &c., which are 
little in danger of extermination, and that in the case of rare 
plants that are in such danger they have a rule expressly per- 
mitting the exchange of cultivated specimens. 
The Zoological Gardens. — We have received the following 
letter from Mr. Joseph Collinson, of the Humanitarian League : 
— “ As one or two papers which have criticised Mr. Selous’s 
pamphlet on ‘ The Old Zoo and the New,’ lately published by 
the Humanitarian League, have refused us the right of reply, 
may we appeal to your courtesy for the insertion of this letter ? 
It is said that our complaints of over-crowding at the Zoo are 
‘ sentimental.’ But the instances given by Mr. Selous are 
specific and clear ; he refers to certain animals whose habits 
he describes, and shows by quoting the measurement of their 
cages that it is impossible for them to exercise those habits as 
they are at present housed, as in the case of the jumping hare 
whose den was boarded up to prevent him jumping himself to 
death against the bars. To allege, as has been done, in reply to 
these definite charges, some jocose remarks supposed to have 
been made by the animals to an ‘ interviewer,’ to the effect that 
they are well satisfied with their surroundings, seems rather 
puerile, and furnishes an illustration of what Mr. Selous himself 
says in his pamphlet, that ‘ any poor beast would have almost 
to take out a pocket handkerchief and weep,’ before some people 
would believe that all was not well with them. 
“ We are assured, for instance, that the leopard in the Small 
Cats’ House ‘ cracks his bones with supreme indifference to 
onlookers.’ Possibly, but that is hardly a proof that it is 
humane to shut a leopard in such quarters ; and it seems to be 
