A FIELD NATURALIST.*

WHEN a naturalist like Sir Herbert Maxwell relates what he

has learnt in the fields and woods and by the aide of mountain lochs the story to a large number of country livers reads like a revelation. Why one intelligent person sees so much in rural life and another of perhaps equal intelligence sees so little would appear passing strange were it not that there are born naturalists just as there are born poets,—men who in a measure conquer Nature by loving her, and find in her service an ever growing source of delight. It was surely genius that inspired Robert Dick, the baker of Thurso, to become, as the author reminds us, a botanist and geologist. "He used to set the loaves soon after midnight, and leaving his house at four in the morning, set off at a run for Morven, distant some thirty miles of moor and quag, and having filled his satchel with plants from marsh and crag, return on foot over the dark plain in time for the morrow's baking."

Under very different worldly conditions the author of these interesting " Memories " displays the same ardour, and the man whose knowledge of natural objects is slight will find his pages full of matter as fresh as it is instructive. We wonder, for instance, if the " general reader" is aware that the larger number of British birds are migrants, and that even blackbirds and thrashes, robins and wrens, "are almost as regular migrants as the swallows, cuckoos, and woodcocks," or if he has heard what Sir Herbert truly calls the startling suggestion that the Arctic Circle is probably the original cradle of bird-life. The power birds have of resisting cold has been frequently observed by Arctic voyagers as well as by naturalists. During the memorable frost of 1895, the severest winter since 1814, the author relates that he watched a vast number of wild fowl on a half-frozen lake in Scotland. It was freezing hard under an iron sky and a blinding blizzard flew before a roaring south-easter. There was shelter for all these birds in a bay behind a wooded island, yet most of them remained asleep on the ice with breasts to the wind in the teeth of the piercing blast. How it is that a bird's foot resists frostbite during hours of contact with the ice Sir Herbert cannot say. That is one among many secrets still hidden from the ornithologist. The current belief as to the effect of intense cold on insect life is apparently not based on observation. Daring the bitter winter of 1776, when the Thames was frozen over so that crowds of people walked on it, Gilbert White noticed that when the thaw came in February "swarms of little insects were f risk- ing and sporting in a court-yard at South Lambeth as if they had felt no frost." Sir Herbert Maxwell also observed that all through the summer of 1895 there was an un- usual number of butterflies, and injurious insects, according to Miss Ormerod's official report, showed no signs of diminution in that season. The loss of life in severe winters is not due to cold, but to want of food, and in 1895, so sorely pressed by hunger were the red-deer on the Scottish moorlands, that it

was with difficulty they could be kept out of the farmers' houses. "At Dall on Loch Rannoch the birds actually took corn out of the forester's hand, and at Dunalastair stage and

birds crowded down to hay laid close by the public road." Sydney Smith used to put up posts in his field for the cows to rub themselves against when tormented by flies, but Sir

Herbert Maxwell points out that animals that cannot lick or switch their own fore-quarters are intended to go in herds, and to get their companions to perform these services for them " While eating my sandwich one day beside the Tweed a, Sprouston, I watched the behaviour of a small herd of heifers and bullocks. One of these seemed to be in special r.tquest as coiffeur ; one after another its companions came to it, and made it desist from feeding in order to lick their necks and faces. It really was very remarkable how good-natured this creature was, and how freely it placed its rough tongue at the disposal of its fellows. For fully • Memories of the Montlut : being Pages from the Note Book of a Field Naturol•st and Antiquary—to wit, Sir Herbert Harwell, Bark, M.P. London: E. Arnold. half an hour it was occupied in this way, snatching not more than a dozen mouthfuls the while, and I left it so engaged in order to resume my fishing. Mr. Cornish mentions in his charming little book, Animals at Work and Play, how the unhappy, solitary giraffe at the Zoo makes all its coat bright and clean except its neck, which, as the beast has no companion to wash it, is several shades darker than the rest of its body, and is a source of mani- fest discomfort."

Like all true naturalists, the author deplores the needless cruelty of amateur sportsmen, and the waste of bird-life due to the demands of fashion. Seeing a brace of wild swans on the wing his gillie told him that he knew exactly where they

would be found. "I surprised, and perhaps disgusted, him by saying that if I were to be offered twenty guineas apiece

for these lovely creatures I would never draw a bead on them." The thoughtless cruelty of the world, says Sir Arthur Helps, outweighs all the rest, and it must surely be thoughtlessness, combined with a want of imagination, which allows women to adorn their persons at the cost of so much ruthless torture to the most beautiful of their fellow mortals. After noticing a leaflet issued by the Society for the Protection of Birds on the wearing of bird-of-paradise plumes, Sir Herbert Maxwell adds :—

" These are commonly mixed with so-called 'ospreys,' which are really the bridal dress of two species of white heron. The iniquity of the traffic in 'ospreys' has been shown to rest on the fact that these coveted plumes are only displayed at the breeding season ; indeed they are not fully developed on the parent-birds till the young ones are hatched. Hence the nesting colonies have to be attacked at the very season when humanity should decree protection to beautiful and harmless birds. Grievous is the description by eye-witnesses of the collection of these plumes; rough fellows make a raid of the heronry, shooting down the old birds, tearing out the plumes, and flinging aside their victims, often still alive, to perish miserably in sight of their starving broods."

The needless destruction of animal life is frequently de- plored by Sir Herbert. When will gamekeepers learn that hedgehogs and water-voles are harmless, and that wood- peckers are also above all suspicion? The squirrel, too. should be spared, for the trifling injury it causes may well be forgiven to a little creature so lively and beautiful The only animal against which the author has a grudge is the rabbit, and the destructive habits and fecundity of this animal make it no doubt a veritable pest. Happily for our fields and woodlands this creature, as Sir Herbert observes, shows a remarkable and unaccountable discretion in its diet :—

"It gnaws the common laurel, which we consider poisonous, and avoids the rhododendron belonging to the innocuous heath family. It devours crocuses and rejects snowdrops both members of the lily tribe ; it eats hepaticas to the ground and avoids their cousins, the winter aconites and wood anemones. Luckily for our lanes and woodland walks, the rabbit cannot digest the common primrose ; but almost all the exotic kinds, such as auriculas, are destroyed at once, and even the coloured varieties of cowslip and common primrose are not invulnerable."

The list of shrubs and herbs given by the naturalist which may be relied on to resist the attacks of rabbits forms a useful page in the volume.

Isaac Taylor, in attempting to account for the ghost that disturbed the peace of the Wesley family, hazards the con- jecture that there may be certain soulless imps that escape

at times from their confines and amuse themselves with playing mischievous tricks on mankind. Some similar

thought or wish seems to have crossed Sir Herbert Max- well's mind when he notices the simulation of animals, and especially of plants, which are supposed to be destitute of intelligence. How does it come to pass, he asks, that the orchids, which transact their own fertilisation, manage to keep off bees and flies and spiders by displaying at their lips the appearance of those insects, and why do certain

plants emit the most disgusting odours in order to attract carrion-loving flies ? Thus the arum crinitum, "probably

the most hideous flower in existence, resembles a gaping wound lurid with gangrene nearly a foot long." The author

adds that he has seen the flowers just as completely fly- blown as if they really had been decaying flesh. Puzzled by these and similar eccentricities in Nature, he thinks it is to be greatly regretted that we have abandoned our belief in fairies.

Many pleasant and suggestive notes are given about flowers and gardens, and in one of them a protest is made against the intemperate use of Latin words. Although generic and specific terms are necessary for scientific classifi-

cation, they should, Sir Herbert Maxwell thinks, be as simple as possible :—

" An old Scotch gardener once confessed to the difficulty which this nomenclature added to his vocation. Asked whether he did not find it hard to teach his apprentices the long learned names, I do that,' replied he ; and—fac'—I couldna teach them ava' without my memoria teelotica.' Asked further to give an example of that, • Weel,' said he, see there ; yon's what they ca.' a Cryptomeria japonica. " Noo," says I to the lads," when ye want to mind the name o' you tree, just think o' Creep-to-the-mear and jump-onto-her." ' "

Even this worthy's system, the author adds, would have been

sorely taxed with regard to a beautiful lily at a London show bearing the excruciating title Lilium umbellatum Thunbergi- anion balbiferum nigro-maculatum. There is, as Juliet felt in spite of her disclaimer, a great deal in a name, and it is difficult to be attracted by a flower burdened with a title like this. On the other hand, there is scarcely a homely name given to our English wild flowers that does not add some-

thing to their charm.

We have read these "Memories" with great pleasure, and believe that all lovers of Nature will find much in the book which cannot fail to interest them also.