44 
NATURE NOTES 
The Birmingham Branch and Warley Woods. — We con- 
gratulate our Birmingham and Midland Branch on the very 
prompt and effective action they have taken to secure the 
preservation of a valuable beauty-spot as a lung for North-west 
Birmingham. Professor Hillhouse brought the matter before 
the Annual Meeting of the Branch at which Sir Hallewell 
Rogers, the retiring President, was in the chair. It was found 
that ^1,000 is necessary at once to hold the hands of the 
contractor from the timber on the estate, and most of this has 
already been subscribed. On no account must the small balance 
fail to be forthcoming. As to the purchase of the estate itself, 
the owner is abroad, and, though the sum of £%,ooo has been 
mentioned as the price as a building estate, it is hoped that a 
smaller amount may be accepted for dedicating the whole or part 
of the estate to the public. It is in forming a centre for the 
organisation of such local efforts at an emergency that a branch 
of the Selborne Society performs one of its most useful functions. 
Dunstaffnage Castle. — The Duke of Argyll, as keeper of 
the oldest Royal Castle in the British Islands, appeals for sub- 
scriptions towards its repair, the outer walls threatening collapse, 
and towards the getting together of a museum within its walls, 
as has been done at Carisbrooke. Subscriptions may be sent to 
Messrs. Coutts and Co., 440, Strand, marked “ Dunstaffnage 
Fund.” 
Alleged Encroachments on Adwalton Moor. — Some of 
our readers may require to be reminded that Adwalton Moor, 
near Bradford, where a public road seems to have been stopped, 
is often in our history books spoken of as Atherton Moor. Here, 
on June 30, 1643, l^^e Earl of Newcastle defeated the Fairfaxes, 
temporarily gaining possession of the West Riding for the 
Royalist cause. 
Shooting Rare Birds. — It is most depressing to read the 
repeated triumphant records of the local gunner as to his prompt 
destruction of any winged thing he may see that is out of the 
common. No doubt, as a popular romancist has imagined, an 
angel, if once “ materialised,” would immediately share the same 
fate. Small birds, which it might be hoped would escape notice, 
share the doom of their larger fellows. We read of a pair of 
Bearded Tits being shot recently at Burley Fishponds, near 
Oakham, and of five or six specimens of the magnificent and 
now rare “ Common ” Bittern (Botaurus stellarus) killed in Eng- 
land during the present year. This last-mentioned fine species, 
measuring from three to four and a half feet across its wings, once 
bred regularly in our islands; it still visits them every spring 
and would certainly re-establish itself if unmolested. It is in 
the schedule of the Birds Protection Act of 1880, and is pro- 
tected all the year round by some twenty County Councils, in- 
cluding Cheshire, within the limits of which county one of the 
