SELBORNIANA. 235 
was unacquainted ; whereas we find hero that only the best known birds are fully 
treated. 
To revert for one moment to the black-throated wheatear, the author does 
not mention the eastern form of this bird (5. melanoletica) which is regarded 
by some ornithologists, who are well able to give an opinion, as a good 
species, although, according to Seebohm who saw the bird (and the plate in the 
“ Birds of Lancashire ” bears him out) it was this form and not the western one 
which visited us. Ur. Sharpe however states the contrary. Where all the- 
stages of plumage assumed by a species are not described, that in which it is 
usually met with in this country should be chosen for description. But opening 
the book at random ,'p. iSo), we find the only plumage of the little stint alluded 
to is that of the adult in winter, in which stage the bird is rarer in England than in 
any other. The autumn dress of birds of the year, of the curlew sandpiper (p. i8i), 
is not referred to, though ninety-nine out of a hundred of the examples shot in 
England are in this plumage. And it is incorrect to say that the knot (same page) 
in autumn very much resembles in colour the curlew .sandpiper. The chief place 
should have been given to a description of the plumage of the young blue- 
throated warbler in the dress of the first autumn, and by the way, autumn and 
not winter should have been given as the usual season of its occurrence on our 
coast. 
An appendix contains a list of species provisionally excluded, but why the 
Siberian thrush, more than some others found in the body of the work, should 
find a place in this, we are at loss to know. We cannot agree with an author, 
who, while fully appreciating the position of a sub-species, considers that Antkus 
mpestris “is undoubtedly a valid species,” but we must commend his use of 
trinomials. Names of birds are given to them for our convenience, and it is 
obviously convenient to indicate by writing Pants major, Pams aUr and Pants 
ater briiannictis, the near relationship of the two latter forms ; while it seems 
to us that to use only binomials in this case would be misleading. AW-necked 
pheasant (p. i6i) must be a misprint. If, in noticing this little work, we have 
referred rather fully to what seem to us to be its failings, it is because we can 
see capabilities in the book, after revision in the manner indicated, of being 
much more useful than it is now. 
O. V. Aplin. 
SELBORNIANA. 
Kew Gardens. — Can nothing be done to call forth an effectual protest 
against the spoliation of Kew Gardens ? The work of destruction still goes on. 
Last week I found a magnificent oak tree felled near the azalea garden, and 
men busy with their axes in the adjoining wood. On my asking one of the men 
the purpose of all this, he replied that “improvements” w’ere being carried oa 
everywhere in the gardens. Too well <lo dwellers near London know that that 
fatal word “ improvements ” means nothing less than the ruin of natural beauty. 
Am I not right in supposing that the nation pays for the maintenance of Kew 
Gardens, and that therefore we have a right to protest against the destructive pro- 
clivities now manifested therein ? E. S. 
The Daily Chronicle says : — “ Kew Gardens is nominally under the con- 
trol of the Office of Works, but no one in that office seems willing to check the 
director. We do not doubt the eminence of Mr. Thiselton Dyer in his own branch 
of science, but he seems to be ridden by a very questionable theory in regard 
to landscape gardening. Apparently he has proiiounced against all forms of tree- 
grouping. He is an ardent believer in the isolation of the individual tree — a sort 
of arboreal individualism. The effects of this theory, drastically applied, are daily 
becoming more evident. In every part of the garden ancient trees are being 
felled, and their stumps left as the only monuments of past glories. On what 
grounds Mr. Thiselton Dyer defends his action we do not know, but we strongly 
suspect that in the control of an ancient public trust like Kew Gardens any very 
definite theory is dangerous. Trees are easily destroyed, but they take genera- 
tions to replace. The public taste is, after all, not a negligable factor in the 
case of a public garden, and the many protests that are heard on every side from 
