i68 
NATURE NOTES 
ripple, and then you see a water-rat pushing his way from one 
bank to the other. For a moment he rests on the bank and 
looks at you and then he disappears into his hole, which is 
situated just above the level of the water, beneath a clump of 
garlic. Crossing the bridge and making for the outside you 
start a tree pipit from her nest in some rank grass, wherein are 
six eggs, one of which evidently belongs to the cuckoo, which 
has been uttering its well-known cry all the while you have 
been in the copse. One more nest awaits you, that of the tree 
creeper, built firmly between the trunk of an oak and a thick 
ivy-shcot. It is only possible to see its contents by pressing the 
side of the nest down, and then its three little eggs are seen, 
which are white with pronounced red spots at the larger end. 
It is now time to take leave of the delightful spot, which 
appears like a sea of blue owing to the many bluebells which are 
gently moved by the breeze, and with a farewell look at the pond 
studded with water lilies and the yellow iris, you walk along 
the path which borders it, and then emerge once more near the 
little stream, following which you speedily leave the many 
sounds expressive of the happiness you have left behind you. 
Fylton Rectory, near Bristol. A. C. Mackie. 
WHITE HERONS AND WORN-OUT HORSES: 
WHAT CAN THE LEGISLATURE DO? 
(Reprinted, by the author’s permission, from the Manchester Guardian.) 
O all lovers of bird-life and to all who desire to see some 
of the most beautiful forms of that bird- life preserved 
to us it must be a matter of sincere satisfaction that 
the agitation against that murderous millinery which 
Punch has lampooned and G. F. Watts has lately made the sub- 
ject of a picture should at last have taken definite shape and 
have appealed not without result to the Legislature. It is true 
we are in our sumptuary laws behind America, but at least we 
appear to have in our members of Parliament hearts that can be 
touched and souls that can feel for the wrongs that fashion has 
hitherto inflicted without challenge upon a defenceless creature. 
We can afford to allow the writer in Blackwood's Magazine to twit 
the age for becoming too soft-hearted for national enterprise 
when a hard-headed House of Commons can take up the 
gauntlet in behalf of the Ardca gracilis. It was believed that that 
little white heron of Florida is rapidly becoming extinct because 
the women of England delighted to deck their heads and bonnets 
with the nuptial plumes of the mother-bird. These could only 
be obtained during nesting-time, and to obtain them meant the 
destruction by a most cruel and prolonged death from sunstroke 
and starvation of all the nestlings. Rut the women of England 
were not the only offenders. It was realised that a very large 
