104 
NA TURE NOTES 
to introduce the manufacture of cider, and consequently the 
prevention of a waste of fruit in years when there happens to 
be a glut. 
The Rev. H. E. U. Bull, in seconding the resolution, 
alluded to the loss the Society had sustained in the death of 
the Rev. Prebendary Gordon, of Harting, Sussex, who was 
passionately fond of animals, especially birds, and asked per- 
mission to include in the vote of thanks those ladies and gentle- 
men who had kindly lent objects for exhibition that evening. 
The resolution was carried with acclamation, and Sir John 
Lubbock briefly returned thanks and then left the chair. 
In the Conversazione that followed, a large and most 
interesting series of microscopes and slides were exhibited by 
members of the Royal and Quekett Microscopical Societies ; and 
numerous pictures, especially paintings of flowers, and other 
natural history objects, Were kindly lent by Mr. F. W. Ashley, 
Mrs. Brightwen, Rev. Professor Henslow, Mrs. G. E. Marindin, 
Mrs. Phillips, Miss F. M. Pilkington, Messrs. R. H. Read, 
R. M. Wattson and others. Mr. R. Marshman Wattson gave a 
demonstration of living aquatic insects with a lantern micro- 
scope ; the Rev. H. E. U. Bull, M.A., exhibited and described 
a charming series of lantern slides of scenes in the New Forest ; 
Mr. H. W. Ravenshaw exhibited the series of beautiful slides 
of birds, from photographs taken from life by Mr. Lodge, lent 
by the Society for the Protection of Birds ; and Mr. E. A. 
Martin, F.G.S., described the slides of Selborne which are the 
property of the Society and may be borrowed by Branch 
Secretaries. 
A Protest. — Will you allow me, through your columns, to 
call the attention of all lovers of nature to an article entitled 
“Photographing a wounded African Buffalo” that appears in 
Harper's Magazine for April. The author, Mr. Arthur C. 
Humbert, tells us, with great circumstantiality and with evident 
self-satisfaction how, during a tour through Portuguese East 
Africa, he shot an African buffalo, and, taking out his pocket 
camera, photographed the animal in six successive stages of 
mortal agony. The photographs are reproduced in the article, 
and, together with the descriptive matter appended, give a 
remarkable picture of the writer’s mind. 
The brutal callousness of this so-called “ sportsman,” who, 
after wounding a noble animal, instead of putting him out of his 
agony, calmly photographs him during his death throes, is, I 
think, worthy of the severest reprobation, and the publisher 
who could print such an article, merely to gratify the morbid 
taste of a section of readers, is scarcely less'blameable. 
A. L. Stevenson. 
Botany in the London Parks. — We are pleased to see that 
the London County Council has adopted the proposals of its 
Parks and Open Spaces Committee on this subject, to which 
we referred in our last number (p. 82). 
