COUNTRY LIFE
WE are going to hear a deal about the formation of so-called National Parks. The places officially put in the first class are the Lake District, Snowdonia, Dartmoor, the Peak District and Dovedale, the Pembroke anu Cornish coasts. Second come the North Devon Coast, Craven Pennine,. Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons, Exmoor and the Roman Wall. It is suggested that when the scheme is complete these Parks, not including the Forest Parks, should number two dozen. All this is very splendid; but naturalists at any rate wonder, not without some misgiving, what the nation, if it finances such Parks, will consider a proper definition or ideal. In the latest definition occurs this sentence: a place where "access and facilities for open-air enjoyment are amply provided." Does this mean that such a resort of wild birds and rare plants as Braunton Burrows, where quail nest, or Saunton Sands are to be decorated with spacious hostels from which tourists, equipped with trowels and egg boxes, may be encouraged to destroy what is rare and wild? It is certainly a good idea to establish National Parks, though they are not of the same species as Banff or the Yellowstone or the Kruger Parks ; but let it be well understood that " beautiful and wild country "—a phrase in the definition—may easily be robbed of its wild life and floral beauty by those who cturse an urban idea of what a Park should be.
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