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NATURE NOTES 
commonest method in the first case is, as stated, to be con- 
duplicate ; and in this kind they may be flat, as in the lime, or 
crumpled, like a closed fan, as in the currant and beech. 
With regard to the ways in which the leaves cover one 
another, a common method is to have the halves of a blade 
slightly separated, and so, standing at an angle, they can then 
fit over the others, either in two ranks, as in grasses, or three 
ranks, as in sedges. A third common method is to have each 
scale and leaf rolled round all the interior ones in succession, as 
in the cherry. 
The various differences can be best studied just as the bud 
begins to expand and its parts to grow, but before they have 
escaped, and while the relative positions are still maintained. 
As one object of the Selborne Society is to encourage young 
students to make “Nature Notes” for themselves, it is hoped 
that this short paper may prove suggestive, as it need hardly 
be said that scarcely any two kinds of plants have buds exactly 
alike; so that they will furnish plenty of material for those who 
wish to pursue the subject further. 
George Henslow. 
NOTES ON LONDON BIRDS IN 1897 . 
N winter London birds are apt to mope, and my 
morning walks through Kensington Gardens and 
Hyde Park generally result in my seeing very little 
life. But on some occasions the birds are extremely 
lively, and these are often the mornings which human beings 
seem to find the most depressing. The morning of January i, 
1897, was very dull and damp, and yet it was one of those days 
which appeal mysteriously to birds. Not only were the thrushes 
singing wildly, but the wood-pigeons were cooing and practising 
their spring flight, the sparrows flirting, and the ducks on the 
Serpentine going through the performance of a kind of dance, 
in which they frequently indulge in early spring, and also 
occasionally on bright mornings in October. About ten birds 
generally take part in these performances, of which about three 
are ducks and the rest drakes. The ducks start the game by 
racing round and about the drakes with their necks stretched 
out to their full length just above the surface of the water ; then 
the drakes, as if at a given signal, raise their chests out of the 
water, uttering at the same time a curious high squeak, after 
which they begin to race round with the ducks in a way which 
reminds one of the chain in the last figure of the Lancers. 
On January 13 I heard a pied wagtail in Hyde Park, and on 
the morning of the 18th, when the thermometer stood at about 
25 I'ahr., a large flock of larks passed over the Serpentine 
