1884.] 
( I 77 ) 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
*•* T*? e Editor does not hold himself responsible for statements of fa&s or 
opinions expressed in Correspondence, or in Articles bearing the signature 
of their respective authors. 
ON CYCLING. 
In reviewing Dr. Richardson you say that the cyclist moves too 
fast for close observation of Nature. I partly admit this; but 
an hour’s cycling through 10 miles yields far more observation 
than an hour’s walk through 3 miles, and you overlook the silence 
with which the cyclist approaches animals. For years I tried to 
see a corn crake, and never succeeded till a tricycle enabled me 
to surprise one by a roadside. The bicycle has enabled me to 
observe a weasel hunting by a hedgeside, and to get within 
20 yards of it. I have heard the nightjar only during bicycle 
rambles, and never saw one except when I was cycling near 
Stratford-on-Avon. The only wild swan that I ever saw flew 
overhead while I was cycling at Papplewick, near Newstead. I 
noticed great improvement in the woodland paintings of Alfred 
Cox when he took to bicycling, to say nothing of improvement 
in his shape — from more than 16 stones to less than 14. 
Let me, as President of the Nottingham Bicycle Club, join in 
commending cycles to all lovers of Nature. 
Hugh Browne. 
CANAL CUTTING. 
In No. 155 of the “ Edinburgh Review ” is a very able article 
on schemes for cutting the Isthmus of Panama, and it treats as 
a great difficulty the excessive rainfall — more than 120 inches — 
in the district of Chagres, through which M. Lesseps proje( 5 ts a 
canal. Ought it not to be the greatest help ? The Reviewer 
implies that all excavation must be done with the spade, but 
Californian miners have shown that water is far more effective ; 
they conduct it along hill-sides at great expense, and then they 
direcFt it through the pipe of a monitor, with a force fatal to any 
man who gets in its way, and rocks and gravel break and dis- 
appear before it. With it one man does the work of fifty with 
