County Histories Our counties, especially I think the counties near
London, are becoming more county conscious as their individual qualities are more seriously threatened. Within a week I have seen three books on Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire and some of their more particular properties. Mr. Hyne, in association with the Regional Survey Association for the district—and this body is in itself a potent sign of the times —has edited (not at all for profit) a really gorgeous volume called The Natural History of the Hitchin Region. It would have pleased Gilbert White si foret in terris, for it deals with, and illustrates in colour, the archaeology of the neighbour- hood as well as its birds, insects, plants, and the rest. The editor has few rivals as a fond and faithful and hard working historian of his own neighbourhood, though he leaves the special departments of natural history to particular specialists within the county. One of the two books about Bucking- hamshire also concerns a district made famous by the Friends. Both Hitchin and the Penn country, now very spaciously described for the sake of its preservation in per- petuity, were great Quaker centres. How many of Mr. Hyne's " Hitchin Worthies " of another local book were of Quaker stock ?
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