NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 17 
from Mr. Meyrick, for he commenced the butterflies with Parnassius and Pieris, 
and ended them with Colias and Papilio. 
Mr. Meyrick has done much work in Australian and New Zealand Lepidoptera, 
and has always paid much attention to the neuration of the wings ; a subject which 
might be more attended to by British entomologists than has hitherto been the case, 
though it is easy to attach an e.xaggerated importance to any one character. The 
occasional illustrations of wing-neuration which Mr. Meyrick has given will be 
very useful, if only in familiarizing British Lepidopterists with the use of so im- 
portant a character. Although the book is rather more technical than some of 
the readers of Nature Notes may care for, it will yet be of sufficient importance 
to any field naturalist who will take the trouble to master its technicalities to justify 
our giving it a detailed notice here ; for, as we have said before, there is no other 
book, except Stainton’s Manual, which even attempts to give an adequate risumi 
of the whole of the British Lepidoptera; and though we may not agree with Mr. 
Meyrick in everything, yet it is always useful to have the conservative tendencies 
which frequently manifest themselves in British entomologists, stirred up now and 
then by some bold innovator. W. F. K. 
SELBORNIANA. 
Gilbert White’s Selborne Sermons. — A well-known bookseller recently 
catalogues a copy of the first edition of the Natural History and Antiquities of 
Selborne, 1789, which he prices at 7^5 i8s. The information is vouchsafed that 
only one other copy has been offered for sale at auction for the past three years, 
and that (the Crowther copy) realised ;^io. Ilis list also contains five original 
manuscript sermons in the autograph of Gilbert White with the following note : — 
“ .^t the death of Gilbert White these MS. sermons (with the original MS. of the 
Natural History of Selborne) passed into the hands of his brother Benjamin, from 
him to his son Benjamin, from the latter to his son, the Rev. Glyd White, who 
bequeathed them to the father of their recent owner, after which they passed 
directly into our hands.” These are priced from 2i to 3 guineas each, and they 
appear to have been preached on an average about thirty times each. 
Wormley, Herts. W. B. Gerish. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Titmice and. Nuts. — We have been much interested lately in observing the 
taste which the titmice appear to have for nuts. We have put some nuts in the 
crevices of the bark of an old tree, close to the house, every morning for several 
weeks, really for the squirrels ; but it appears that the tits are more ready to take 
them. Almost immediately the nuts are left one or two great tits appear from 
some tree close by, hav'ing evidently waited expectantly. If the nuts are fixed 
firmly into the bark the bird begins to hammer with his beak at it, and, finally 
manages to make a hole in it, through which he can get out the kernel, for we 
have found nutshells left by them thus. They do not seem to choose the softest 
part of the nut, but make a hole in it anywhere. If they cannot do this, they 
carry the nut off from bough to bough until, I suppose, they find some place to 
hammer at it satisfactorily — indeed, we often hear them making quite a noise at it. 
Sometimes, too, they seem only to play with the nuts, picking them out, and then 
rolling them down to the ground, whilst others they take them away, apparently to 
hide them, for they return almost at once for another. Although there are two or 
three kinds of titmice in the garden, we have seen none but the great tits come for 
the nuts, but they seem to prefer them to the coco-nuts which we hang up for 
them. 
Bristol. A. R. F. 
