38 
NATURE NOTES. 
SELBORNIANA. 
“ Object Teacbin^.” — An important circular bearing this title has been 
recently issued by the Education Department, with the view of making the 
teaching of children less bookish, and of developing in them a love of nature and 
an interest in living things. For this end, “ the children should be encouraged to 
bring with them to the lesson illustrative specimens which they have collected 
or borrowed from friends.” The long lists appended suggest as objects various 
beasts and birds, including squirrels, thrushes, larks and robins, owls’ feet and 
woodpeckers’ tongues, nests and eggs, and greenery, including sundew and flesh- 
eating plants. Is there not danger that these suggestions may incite rather than 
check the tendency to destructiveness among children, by fostering a reckless 
spirit of collecting, which, spreading over hundreds of schools, may seriously 
injure the flora and fauna of Great Britain ? 
Vaughan House, Croydon. E. Phillips. 
[The Brighton Herald of January 4 thus endorses Mrs. Phillips’s protest : — “ It 
is pleasant to note that many County Councils have already awakened to a sense 
of their duties and responsibilities in the matter of the protection of our British 
birds, and have asked and obtained the Government sanction for the extension of 
an uniform close time for certain species over wide areas. But another branch 
of the Government, to wit, the Education Department, has aimed a severe blow 
at the preservation of our wild birds and animals by the issue of the circular 
on ‘ Object Teaching,’ June, 1895, No. 369. This ill-inspired circular positively 
suggests ‘ Hedgehogs, the tongue of a woodpecker, the singing thrush, lark, 
robin, and nests and eggs’ as fitted for ‘object teaching,’ and that children 
should be encouraged ‘ to bring with them illustrative specimens they have 
collected and borroived from friends.’ The loan of a hedgehog suggests diffi- 
culties. It is to be feared that, when the omnipresent Board School boy or 
girl ‘ catches on ’ to this brand-new official idea, our land will, indeed, become 
desolate, unless, meanwhile, ‘ the Lords of the Council ’ should be endowed with 
sufficient ‘grace, wisdom, and understanding’ to modify this circular, which 
contains some excellent suggestions to teachers. It would seem on consideration 
more needful just at present ‘ to teach the young idea tiot to shoot’ at tomtits or 
robins or stray magpies with air guns — those ignoble, if still legal, weapons ; not 
to sling stones at birds or squirrels, a pastime some boys, ay, and grown men, too, 
still seem to delight in. It is one of the prettiest sights in the world to see these 
dainty little animals chasing each other in the Thiergarten in Berlin, scarcely a 
stone's throw from the ‘ war monument,’ or running freely about in the State 
Capitol Grounds at Richmond, Virginia. Why should not such things be seen 
in the public gardens of our own cities ? ” — Ed. N. A'.] 
“Feathered ‘Women.” — It has been said that the wearing of artificial 
aigrette plumes is almost as bad in its results, as far as example is concerned, as 
the wearing of the real things. May I suggest that this remark should also apply 
to the wearing of feathers of any kind, as regards birds generally, whether such 
feathers are from birds “killed for food” &c., or not. Probalily the majority 
of those who wear feathers are quite unaware what kind of bird they have been 
taken from. A young girl, for instance, sees some feathers upon the head of 
another which take her fancy, and she thinks she .should like to have something of 
the kind herself. She goes to the milliner’s shop accordingly, and selects what 
pleases her most ; she may or she may not care to inquire whether the feathers 
are those of some “ rare species,” or those of a barn door fowl. 
C. E. C. 
“Catch Birds Alive.” — A correspondent calls our attention to the 
advertisements in a recent number of the Bazaar, of which the following is a 
specimen : — “Catch Birds Alive. Improved .self acting spring net traps, 4,6cx) 
sold to Bazaar readers, all testimonials published during last six years guaranteed 
genuine and unsolicited. Mr. wrote, with permission to use name in adver- 
tisement : ‘ I caught ten bullfinches and two blackcaps, one day with trap.’ is. 3d. 
each, two 2s. 4d. post free. Instructions sent.” There are nine other advertise- 
ments of this kind in the same issue of this widely-circulated paper. 
