102 
NATURE NOTES 
lovely. It is many years since we have had such a leafy month 
of May, such a fair promise of a glorious summer, not only from 
a farming, but from an artistic point of view. The foliage is full 
and rich, and we may quote with exceptional truth 
“ The woods are filled so full of song, 
There seemed no room for sense of wrong.” 
Unfortunately the old ideas of destruction are by no means 
extinct. 
Sir John then read the paragraph from the Daily Telegraph, 
which we quoted on p. 83 under the heading “ Insanity in 
Lancashire,” and went on to say : — 
What, however, could we expect when osprey feathers are 
actually worn in the army ! He had spoken to the authorities 
and sincerely trusted that they would put a stop to this cruel 
regulation. 
In the great Indian epic the Mahabharata, the seven Heroes 
with their wife Draupadi (for it is a very interesting case of 
polyandry) and their dog find themselves at the gates of Heaven. 
They are admitted, but are told that no woman can enter. They 
decline to do so on these terms, but eventually Draupadi is 
allowed to enter. The line however, is drawn there — no mere 
animal can come in. Again the Heroes demur. They will not 
leave their faithful hound, and he also is admitted. 
Some Christian theologians — even in recent years — Kingsley, 
for instance, have been disposed to believe in the immortality of 
animals. However this may be, we ought at any rate to treat 
them kindly while they are alive. 
When we consider how much we owe to the dog, to the 
horse, the ox, the cow, the sheep, and our other domestic 
animals, we cannot be too grateful to them ; and if we cannot, 
like some ancient nations, actually worship them, we have, 
perhaps, fallen into the other extreme, urtderrate the sacredness 
of animal life, and treat them too much like mere machines. 
In the sad and touching account given by the Times of the 
last hours of the great Statesman whose death we are all mourn- 
ing, we are told that almost his last words were “ Kindness, 
kindness, kindness, nothing but kindness on every side.” That 
was an utterance of gratitude on his part, but as a guiding 
principle of life it expresses the ideal of the Selborne Society. 
How much brighter and happier the world would be if we acted 
on it, not only with regard to the lower animals, but amongst 
ourselves also. In the words of Thomas a Kernpis, “ If the 
heart be right then will every creature be to thee a mirror of 
life, and a book of holy doctrine.” 
The Hon. Mrs. R. C. Boyle, in seconding the resolution, 
lamented the continuance of the cruel fashion of wearing birds 
as ornaments, and alluded to several cases in which birds put 
temptation in the way of boys by persisting in building their 
nests in most curiously exposed positions, a titmouse, for in- 
stance, having repeatedly built inside a pump in her own garden, 
