96 
NATURE NOTES. 
completeness to the book. Ramblers will be pleased to learn that Mr. Miles has 
secured the assistance of a collaborator who, under the obvious pseudonym of 
“Alf. Holliday,” will shortly begin the publication of a Northern Heights series ; 
while Mr. Miles himself promises an early addition to his Surrey Hedgerow books. 
A. Gepp. 
SELBORNIANA. 
A “ Disag^reeable Collection.” — “ G. B. S.,” in the Saturday Review of 
March 21, thus expresses his views on “ feathered women ” at the theatre. The 
women who go to places of public entertainment in hats which effectually obstruct 
the view of the performance of those behind them, manifest in another form the 
same selfishness which induces them to sacrifice myriads of lives to their insatiable 
vanity. “The stalls were filled for the most part by quite the most disagreeable 
collection of women I have ever seen. They all wore huge towering hats, piled 
up, for the more effectual obstruction of the view, with every conceivable futility, 
vulgarity, and brutality (in the dead bird line) that a pushing shop-keeper can 
force on the head of a woman in whom conscience, intelligence, character, con- 
viction, sympathy, and every other attribute of an active and awakened nature are 
represented solely by a dull fear of not being in the fashion. The person who 
would have prevented me from seeing the stage if I had not fortunately occupied 
a projecting corner seat, actually had two sea-gull’s wings in her hat, stained 
crimson at the insertion, so as to make them appear as if freshly torn from the 
living bird. I wonder whether, if a Sioux or Huron Indian, with feather head- 
dress and array of scalps complete, were to present him.self with a stall-ticket, he 
would be permitted to sit out the performance ; or is the privilege of not only 
obstructing the view, but making all your commonly humane neighbours feel sick 
every time they look at you, confined strictly to women ? .Surely it is b.ad enough 
to see egret plumage vvaving all over the place, and reminding you at every quiver 
of the slaughter of great numbers of exquisitely pretty birds in order to make a 
few dozen trashy shop-window hats, without also having to endure imitation 
blood-stains on dismembered limbs.” 
Box Hill : the “ Thin End of the Wedge ” ? — On Easter .Sunday a 
friend told me an alarming rumour — that Box Hill had been selected by the 
Government for the site of a military fort, and that the noted wood of box trees 
had already been cut down. Next day I went to see [for myself. Undoubtedly 
the beautilul and commanding hill offers a splendid position for military defensive 
purposes, and its choice may help to prevent the “battle of Dorking” from ever 
becoming a matter of history. I will not attempt to adjust between the respective 
claims ot army experts and their protective plans upon the one hand, and a nature- 
loving public and its enjoyment upon the other. But as a Selbornian I cannot do 
other than lament the necessity — if such it be — which has doomed so charming a 
spot to be so ruthlessly invaded, and for such a purpose. The fort is to be built, 
undoubtedly. A portion of the hill has been sold to the War Department for a 
site. Some acres of the box wood have already been cut down, and the space is 
being cleared. This space is a circular one, and it is entirely within the wood, so 
that the destruction is not perceptible from without. The circle is at the back of 
the keeper’s house and garden — that on the Dorking front of the hill— and just 
touches the garden railings. I was informed by one of the men, apjiarently in 
charge of the spot, that it is not intended to interfere with the surrounding belt of 
trees, and that the margin of the hill, which has afforded so delightful a scries of 
points of view to so many generations of visitors, will remain unaltered. Thus 
far no view-point — indeed, no spot accessible hitherto — has been touched at all. 
But what will be the case when the fort is actually erected, and a garrison with its 
needs becomes a permanency ? A similar station, it was stated, is in forward 
preparation at Reigate ; and another will soon be commenced on Bedford Hill, 
the next ridge to Box Hill northward. As I have already said, nothing of what 
is going on here is visible from outside of the wood — nothing till the cleared circle 
