OUR RIVER. 
21 1 
As in the earlier book, there is no attempt at arrangement 
or connection ; things are written down just as they come, 
with a straightforward simplicity which lends an additional 
charm to the many interesting facts that are scattered up and 
down the pages. ^Ir. Leslie’s artistic perception has enriched 
the book with many illustrations ; those who saw the Royal 
Academy exhibition this year will not have failed to notice his 
glowing picture of the Thames’ side near Wallingford, where 
his lot is happily cast. Our readers will be glad to have the 
illustration of a bird’s feeding-board, as evidencing Mr. Leslie’s 
Selbornian instincts : — 
“ Feeding the birds,” he says, under the date of January 29, 
“ is now a constant care ; they empty the little storehouse on 
its long pole in no time, and it has to be replenished several 
times a day. I have the greatest difficulty,” he continues, 
in preventing the sparrows, rooks, and starlings from getting pretty nearly all I 
put out. The thrushes and blackbirds fare very badly ; the thrushes will persist 
in keeping on the ground ; they do not alight or. to the feeding-board, but creep 
about, and, as it were, “stalk ” their food stealthily and deliberately, in conse- 
quence of which the other more alert birds snatch it away from under their very 
beaks. As to the blackbirds, they waste the best part of their time in fighting 
and chasing away each other and the smaller birds. I am quite at a loss to know 
how to manage the stuff so that these two sorts should get their proper share. 
We have before expressed our wonder that folk who write 
books of this kind do not revise the spelling of the plant-names 
or get some one else to do so. Oenothera tarraxiflora, CE. 
fructicosa, Philodelphuni grandiflora. Aster ericordia, and the like, 
disfigure the volume; and what is the “Japan quince, sometimes 
caWed C amelia japotiica" ? Certainly not Pyrus japonic a, for that 
is described elsewhere ; and certainly not a Camellia. These, of 
