184 
NATURE NOTES 
Glover’s Island, Richmond. — Just as ive go to press we 
see with pleasure that the owner of this willow-grown mud- 
lump in the Thames has failed in his attempt to bluff the 
public-spirited out of ^4,000. A quarter of that sum is the 
outside price which the Richmond ratepayers ought to give to 
secure this tiny eyot. 
Swiney Lectures on Geology. — The course of twelve 
lectures for this year, admission to which is free, will be 
delivered by the eminent palaeontologist, Dr. Traquair, in the 
lecture theatre of the South Kensington Museum, on Mondays, 
Wednesdays, and Fridays, at 5 p.m., commencing Monday, 
October 3, the subject being “ The Palaeontology of Great 
Britain.” 
Assisting the Editor. — The Editor will be much obliged 
by any cuttings from newspapers bearing on the objects of the 
Society. They should be accompanied by the name and date of 
the paper from which they are taken. The Editor is also 
anxious to procure copies of Nos. 4 and 5 of vol. i. of the 
Selbornian Magazine (April and May, 1888), which he requires 
to complete his reference set of the Society’s publications. 
Flowers of the Field. — Her Royal Highness Princess 
Alice of Albany has accepted the dedication of the new edition 
of Johns’ “ Flowers of the Field,” by the Editor of Nature 
Notes, which is about to be published by the Society for 
Promoting Christian Knowledge. 
AN AUTUMN DAY AT SELBORNE. 
HAVE been several times to Selborne, in early and 
late spring, in summer and in the hopping time ; but 
never until last year to see it in real autumn — to me 
the most beautiful and enjoyable of all the seasons of 
the year. This may be because I am getting into the autumn of 
my pilgrimage on God’s beautiful earth. I certainly enjoy 
the beauty that autumn brings with it, more and more as the 
years roll round. No one will deny that the autumn of 1897 
was a record one, for the gradual tinting of the leaves 
received no sudden check by frost or inclement weather; every- 
thing tended to the ripening and lengthening of its season of 
beauty further into the winter than is generally the case. From 
the time the leaves begin to change their green colours for the 
various tints of autumn, up to the time they fall, I look upon 
as their ripening time. We are apt to associate this transition 
with decay. I look upon it in the same way as the colouring 
of fruit. If we take, for example, the quince, I have been 
