202 
NATURE NOTES 
Flett. The subject of the course is the Geological History of 
Great Britain. Admission is free. 
Infant Mortality among Penguins. — Great exertions are 
being made to protect the King Penguin and his taller brother 
the Emperor Penguin, from the extermination with which their 
value — when boiled down to make penguin oil — threatens them ; 
and it would be tragic indeed if these strange birds, who survive 
an infant mortality of 77 per cent., should be rendered extinct 
by the greed of man. In the periodical circular issued by the 
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Dr. E. A. Wilson, of 
the “ Discovery,” whose drawings and photographs have done 
so much of late to popularise the Penguin, supplements the 
information he has already given by some remarks on the young 
of the birds. The great mortality among them is no mere guess, 
but the result of two years’ observation, when the dead chickens 
in the sea-ice were actually counted before the rookery broke up 
at the beginning of the spring. It is surprising that the adult 
birds should be so abundant ; for in a rookery which is apparently 
a going concern there is usually only one chicken to ten or a 
dozen adults, and each adult most anxious to nurse that one 
chicken — a condition of affairs which leads to disastrous quarrels 
for its possession. In these quarrels the chicken invariably 
suffers, and it is easy to find a rent or two in the skin of those 
that have succumbed to their ill-treatment. Dr. Wilson says 
that it is by no means an uncommon sight to see old birds 
nursing a dead chicken, so strongly implanted in them is the 
desire to sit and brood, and so often is the desire unsatisfied on 
account of the high mortality among chickens. 
Preservation of the Malvern Hills. — An important step 
has been taken towards the preservation of the amenities of the 
Malvern Hills by the transfer to the Hills Conservators at Great 
Malvern, by Mr. R. W. Raper, of the rights which he purchased 
last year to quarry stone on the Herefordshire Beacon or British 
Camp, in order to prevent its disfigurement. 
Re-afforestation. — The proposed afforestation of lands in 
this country is receiving much attention from agriculturists in 
East Anglia ; for, where ages ago dense forests waved, there is 
now nothing but a fen or marsh. In the fen lands the possi- 
bility of making money from arboriculture has occupied the 
attention of some progressive farmers, who have profited from 
the cultivation of willows and similar quick-growing trees. The 
University of Cambridge is helping to give force and meaning to 
what might otherwise sound merely another theoretical panacea 
for the farmer, by the steps it is taking for the institution of a 
diploma in forestry. Landowners in the eastern counties have 
been approached, and several have offered the use of con- 
siderable areas of woodland for demonstration purposes. The 
