COUNTRY LIFE

A Threat to Devon North Devon, with its grand and infinitely varied coast, has endured many threats, and here and there has grievously suffered. The latest threat seems to me the worst in the series. Everyone rejoiced when, through the liberality of the landowner, whose benefactions to the nation are many, the National Trust acquired Morte Point, which is a unique head- land. The range of this possession seemed wide enough to ensure the accessibility of the scene. It is now feared that the way to it, the only easy and natural way, may be blocked. The land along the cliffs separating Woolacombe and Morte Point • has been sold by the owners (who do not live in England). If houses were built across this plot along the cliffs, which is crossed by the pathway to Morte Point, a great part of the value to the public of the National Trust property would be altogether lost and yet another bit of the coast of Britain prohibited to Britons. The National Trust have the option of it if they can raise ki,000 within three months. So much a friend of North Devon has secured. The National Trust is a very wise and beneficent body, but is left in poverty and has no funds for such an object as this. They must depend on public generosity. We must believe that their plea for this sum will be promptly answered, both by those who have little and those who have a lot to spare. The address of the National -Trust is 7 Buckingham Palace Gardens, S.W.r.

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What is a Peak ?

Will some student of language or topography please say :what is the meaning of " Peak " ? The Peak of Derbyshire differs greatly, for example, from the Scafell Pike. A learned professor in a charming book about walking in the Pennines falls savagely on those people who dare to talk or write of the Peak District. His argument is that the Peak was in the first instance the name of the district ; and that the lexicographers at a later date falsely seduced the public into the supposition that it means a pointed hill. Words change their meaning and are wrongly used, especially perhaps in regard to scenic features. The word forest, for example, does not necessarily indicate the presence of trees, a fosse may mean a lump or bank, and breck—chiefly used in reference to a particular Breckland in Norfolk and Suffolk—is a local name, I fancy, for a sort of rough field. Is peak really in this class ?

Curious Cattle Some odd examples of various sorts of mobbing, in which birds played the chief part, have presented themselves during the week. Within a park-like meadow in full sight of the house are a number of young cattle—Redpolls and Aberdeen Angus— which are more than usually inquisitive. Among other objects of their interest are a pair of partridges, which have nested in my garden—under the lee of a Rosemary. As soon as seen the cattle began to stalk the birds very slowly, almost like setters at work when they get the first suspicion of a scent. The birds are kept on the move. The performance is ludicrous enough, in general, but it became hilarious when one of the Aberdeens, tiring of the slow pursuit, galloped at full tilt after the flying pair. It is surprising that farm stock so seldom do damage, even by accident, to ground-nesting birds. I can remember no single instance of a nest destroyed by this agency, though I have seen scores of nests in obvious danger. Cattle are bad birds-nesters but good mushroomers. In this same meadow, which is usually well dotted with horse mushrooms, the white discs are altogether too attractive for the cattle to resist. They do not eat them (as some dogs will), but are content to shove them off their stalks.

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Mobbed Victims Two other examples of mobbing : in a neighbouring garden, which is a paradise for birds' nests, half a dozen or so young jays (hatched unusually early) appear on the lawn that underlies the apple trees. Young thrushes, missel thrushes and blackbirds, now pretty well as big as their parents, are nearly always in evidence. Both the young birds and their parents mob the young jays mercilessly and drive them off. They know their enemies ; yet a good deal of mobbing does not appear to be defensive. For example, a vivid account

has been sent me--from the neighbourhood of Rye—of a single heron being chased and attacked by a single rook. The sight must have been much the same as in the old hawking ; the heron both climbed high and tried again and again, as he turned sideways, to strike the rook. Why should rooks make such an onslaught ? They constantly mob hawks, even the more or less harmless kestrel, and once—in France during the War—I saw three of them drive a hawk to the ground. The crow tribe contains, I think, the best of the fliers, if virtue consists in control. No birds—so far as I have noticed—" stunt " with such ease and safety and, one would say, conscious pleasure. The raven, which on occasion plays the game by tumbling from considerable heights, and the jackdaw play more " fantastic tricks before high heaven " than other birds. Such fliers can tire out a hawk and dodge with perfect safety both hawk and heron.

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Weed Killers

It is really very remarkable, and satisfactory, how efficient is the recipe invented some years ago by the Green Research Committee for the encouragement of grass and the destruction of weeds. I saw the other day an ample lawn that had been a mass of plantains and other weeds. One good dressing by this mixture of sand, sulphate of ammonia and sulphate of iron has left it virtually spotless and much improved the grass. For the destruction of isolated plantains I have found personally that nothing is more effective than petrol, which is most easily administered from an ordinary engineer's oilcan with a plunger for the thumb. No plantain recovers from a well-applied drop or two, and the poisoner can do the work with satisfactory despatch. Each act of murder is almost instantaneous. A recent writer on weeds in general (in The Times) denied the existence of a satisfactory definition of a weed. How will this do : " A plant, usually of superior vitality and often of inferior beauty, that interferes with the designs of men." That would allow the plantain to be a valuable fodder plant in the meadow but a weed on the lawn.

Parisian Freaks

Specimens of that queer and queerly local plant, the Herb Paris, have been reaching me from several parts of England, since reference was made to a record sent from a Wiltshire elementary school. The evidence has botanic interest, for it indicates that Bentham and Hooker (the standard authority) and most of their lesser followers have much under-rated the variability of the plant. A Hampshire correspondent sends me a variety of specimens with the following comment : " Five-leaved specimens may be found in quantity in this neighbourhood, six-leaved very frequently and seven-leaved rarely. We have been watching a seven-leaved plant for several years in a particular wood and specimens have been accepted for the Haslemere Museum." Incidentally the keeper of this museum has written a small monograph on the plant, but till recently had never seen a plant with seven leaves, and has been searching in vain for a two-leaved or eight-leaved variety. Five-leaved forms with an additional fifth to each of the floral organs is very rare. Other par- ticularly interesting examples reach me from the neighbourhood of Holt in Norfolk.

Natural " Sports "

It seems to be a year of " sports," in the biological sense of the term. In my neighbourhood one of the roadside woods is inhabited by a coal-black hare which is kind enough to show itself from time to time to passing- motorists. In a copse near by lives a hen chaffinch that appears to possess a pair of light side-whiskers. She looks as if she were per- petually carrying a long mouthful of some queer insect, but the effect is produced by white streaks of feather. They extend on either side of the base of the beak for about one and a half inches. Another oddity is not in the bird but the egg. A linnet (as I take the bird to be) laid a clutch of light green eggs, almost spotless. The nest was unfor- tunately robbed (as, alas, are so many), but the structure and one egg were left ; and as yet identification is not certain. Many accounts of albino birds of various sorts have reached me. They include a blackbird and a greenfinch.

W. BEACH THOMAS.