NATURE NOTES. 
I [6 
ostrich feathers or the eagle’s pinion in a Highlander’s cap, which suggest nothing 
repulsive, though the ostrich or the eagle may have been shot. But a wing or a 
tail with the bones still in it and the dried flesh— the idea is loathsome. 
MOORLAND IDYLLS.* 
Mr. Grant Allen’s title is extremely felicitous. Not only is the writer of idylls 
under no obligation to be instructive or erudite ; he is bound to exhibit no such 
qualities. His business is not with the theme of his choice, which should be as 
void of solidity as possible, but with its garnishing ; it is the supreme triumph of 
his art to be able, as was said of Dean Swift, to write beautifully about a broom- 
stick. 
Of the liberty thus obtained to discard all pretence of having any story to tell, 
worth telling on its own account, he has availed himself to the full, and perhaps 
somewhat beyond. It seems a somewhat scanty foundation whereon to base even 
an idyll, that a town martin has a nest under the eaves of his hill-top cottage ; or 
that there are rabbits in his garden ; or that an old Scotch fir grows on the 
moor hard by. Yet, these statements sufficiently summarise as many chapters of 
his little book. His is doubtless a facile and practised pen, and he has a knack 
of putting colour into a word picture, which, at any rate at first, is very capti- 
vating ; but his range is limited, and his method almost unvarying; and when, after 
having written so much, he eschews, as in the present instance, almost entirely 
the philosophizings which were wont to provide his essays with a skeleton, and 
which, however we might disagree with them, at least gave something seriously to 
examine, the result is of necessity somewhat unsatisfying. 
Instead of a philosopher, Mr. Grant Alien now presents himself as an observer ; 
instead of expounding the operations of nature in the dim ages of the past, he 
undertakes to tell us what actually goes on in the world of life to-day. The result 
is to emphasize a haunting perplexity of which we have ever been conscious in 
regard of his natural history. How is it that he sees things in nature so differ- 
ently from the rest of the world ? He tells us, for instance, that the catkins of 
the alder and the birch are “ fluffy,” which of all epithets would appear to be the 
least appropriate, though it is doubtless inevitably suggested by those of the 
willow. Again, he declares that an adder will kill more mice in a week than a 
man will catch in a summer. But when, recently, the plague of field-mice, or 
field-voles, was devastating a district of .Southern Scotland, and there w.as question 
of protecting the natural enemies of such vermin, the very capable commissioners 
to whom the point was referred came to the conclusion that the good done by 
such reptiles was too insignificant to be counted in their favour ; and with this 
verdict few will quarrel, who know how few and far between are the meals of 
venomous snakes, which Mr. Hudson well styles, “ the champion fasters of the 
universe.” 
More extraordinary is the information supplied with regard to the missel thrush, 
which is of so remarkable a character that, do what we will, we cannot avoid a 
suspicion that Mr. Grant Allen has mixed up this bird and its cousin the field- 
fare. The missel-thrush, he declares, is to be recognized by the white beneath 
its wings, which is a feature possessed equally by the others, and by its extreme 
wildness when feeding gregariously in our fields during the winter, a char.acteristic 
which marks the fieldfare far more strongly. Most puzzling of all, he tells us that 
the missel-thrushes go off to spend the summer on their moors in Norway, a fact 
which will be new to many, returning when the winter sets in. Fieldfares of 
course go to Norway, and beyond, to nest, whence they return with the first 
approach of winter, and each autumn .some one writes to the country jrairers to 
announce their arrival, when, in fact, the birds seen have been missel-thrushes. 
The latter undoubtedly nest in this country, and to undertake a migration north- 
Moorlaud Idylls, by Giant Allen. Chatto & Windus, 8vo., pp. 247, 6s. 
