A MORNING IN RICHMOND PARK 
23 
South-Eastern Union: Temporary Museum.— We have 
been asked to invite suitable contributions for the temporary 
Museum at Dover on the occasion of this year’s Congress of 
the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies on June ir 
to 13. Those who can contribute should communicate with 
the Hon. Secretary, Dr. George Abbott, 33, Upper Grosvenor 
Road, Tunbridge Wells, before March 1, and all exhibits 
should reach Dover by June 10. 
Sowerby’s “English Botany” Supplement. — The copy 
of this work in the Library of the Royal Botanic Gardens, 
Kew, is incomplete, wanting plates 2912 to 2960, with letter- 
press and Index, also plates, with letterpress, 2964, 2977, 2978, 
2983, 2987, 2988 to 2999. The Director appeals to the public 
to assist him in completing this classical work on British 
botany, either by presentation or sale. 
AN AUTUMN MORNING IN RICHMOND PARK. 
HE clock of the Jesuit College hard by tolls out the hour 
of six o’clock as I pass through Roehampton Gate to 
spend a couple of hours amongst the fauna of Richmond 
1 Park, and at this early hour, beyond a few cyclist- 
workmen wheeling along to their daily labours, there is scarcely 
a human being to be seen on any part of this grand stretch of 
woodland and turf and bracken. For a few minutes I stop on 
the little bridge that carries the Richmond road over the Beverley 
brook, to watch a water-vole sitting under the bank of the muddy 
stream breakfasting upon the succulent parts of some kind of 
water plant. Most interesting is it to watch the beaver-like little 
rodent squatting up on his haunches nibbling away at the green 
stuff which he holds very daintily between his fore paws. 
Suddenly the vole makes a dart into a clump of rushes and 
for a moment I imagine that I am the cause of his abrupt dis- 
appearance, but the distorted shadow of a bird on the surface 
of the brook causes me to look upwards, and I see a kestrel 
hovering with fanning wings over the spot upon which but a 
moment before the vole sat enjoying his bulrush salad, and I 
know now that the wind-hover and not myself is answerable for 
his sudden departure. 
At no great distance from the bridge a mixed herd of both 
red and fallow deer are browsing upon the short sweet grass 
under the wide-spreading branches of a fine old pollard oak, and 
two stags carrying ten and twelve points to their antlers re- 
spectively are engaged in a friendly bout of arms a little apart 
from the hinds and prickets, practising no doubt for the more 
serious battles of the rutting season now so near at hand. The 
heavy haunches and swelling necks of the stags proclaim that 
