MAN AND NATURE [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] much
appreciated the article " Man and Nature" by IL P. It. What can be done ? Well there is a very strong organization of scientific societies acting together on this very question of the preservation of Nature and wild fauna. Their centre is the British Natural History Museum. The movement is explained in the Handbook for the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves. It is feeling its way towards becoming international, and consequently vastly more effective. I would say, let that movement be both supported and urged on by the great mass of public opinion and feeling to which H. P.R. refers as being interested in the preservation of Nature. While it is true that big estates are breaking up, with a conse- quent disappearance of woodland and suburbanizing of some wild parts of the countryside, and that agriculture and industrialization claim new tracts of land, it is also the case that national afforestation is being extended ; and if the natural history societies would secure the sympathy of the forestry commissions in preserving natural beauty and wild life—which I feel sure they would easily do, as our own Forestry Commission is not in principle hostile to Nature— then the new woods and forests would become not merely timber stores, but shelters for some at least of the species we want to see preserved. As H. P. R. says, the question of fauna preservation bristles with problems ; the natural history interest needs to be fitted in along with other interests, some of them very divergent ; but we ordinary Nature lovers and field naturalists look to the experts to propose solutions of these problems. Is it too much to hope that the Correlating Com- mittee may ere long give out a policy of fauna preservation with specific suggestions ; and then by virtue of its members' scientific eminence, backed by the general interest and eager- ness referred to in your contributor's article, induce the Govern- ment to give legislative effect to some at least of their recom-
mendations am, Sir, &c., Ducksmoor Cottage, Moretonharnpstead.
H. NORTHCOTE.
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