202 
NATURE NOTES 
Selborne. — Mr. Edmund H. New, of Green Hill, Evesham, 
writes : “ The author of ‘ An Autumn Day at Selborne ’ in your 
October number alludes to the diagonal pathway up the Hanger, 
leading from the bottom of the Zigzag, as the ‘ Bosco.’ This is 
a mistake for ‘ Bostal.’ Gilbert White describes the construc- 
tion of this walk in one of his letters published in the second 
volume of Professor Bell’s most valuable edition of* The Natural 
History and Antiquities of Selborne.’ It was made in the 
autumn of the year 1780.” 
Miss E. Giberne writes: “If any readers of Nature 
Notes wish to spend a few days at Selborne, I can highly 
recommend some lodgings there : Miss Phillips, Myrtle Cottage. 
They will find them very comfortable : one bedroom and sitting 
room for 15s. a week.” 
Barbarity at the Crystal Palace. — We are sorry to notice 
that the National British Bird and Mule Club and the Foreign 
Bird Exhibitors’ League, among whose judges appear the names 
of the Revs. F. G. Dutton and H. D. Astley, M.A., and that of 
Dr. C. S. Simpson, in their recent show at the Crystal Palace, 
countenanced the exhibition of nightingales, woodpeckers, wag- 
tails, swallows and other wild birds, in cages measuring only 
12 inches by 4. Comment is needless. 
Port Madoc Light Railway Scheme. — Miss Blanche At- 
kinson desires to thank all the members of the Selborne Society 
who kindly signed, and sent to her, the Petition promoted by the 
Barmouth Branch of the Selborne Society, against the proposed 
light railway through the pass of Aberglaslyn, and especially 
the editor of Nature Notes for printing the leaflet with the 
form of the Petition, issued with the August number of Nature 
Notes. The Petition was signed by about 2,000 persons. 
Probably many more signatures would have been procured had 
it not been the holiday month. The scheme collapsed at an 
early stage of the local enquiry owing to some technical mistake 
of the promoters, and the beautiful Pass is saved for the present ; 
but there is no doubt that a petition bearing the names of John 
Ruskin, G. F. Watts, R.A., Sir W. B. Richmond, R.A., Alfred 
Austin (Poet Laureate), the Duke of Westminster, the Earl of 
Carlisle, the Dean of Durham, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, 
Marianne Farningham, Professor Hopkinson, Professor Boulger, 
Professor Percy Gardner, Professor Hewins, the Right Hons. 
James Bryce, G. Shaw Lefevre, and many artists, will not be 
without effect should the scheme be renewed. 
The Story of the Farm. — The Rural World Publishing 
Co. has just issued a small volume by Professor Long, entitled 
“The Story of the Farm.” Lady Warwick, we understand, 
has written an introduction. The book deals with the economic 
and social sides of the agricultural question. 
