29 DECEMBER 1928, Page 25

M. Oliver Pike believes that the study of nature in

England can-be carried on usefully and intelligently from the seats of a motor-car. The principle is that the many dramas and comedies that are always enacted on the stage of nature can thus be watched in comfort ; but leave the car, and the wild folk will instantly take alarm." This he has expanded into a book, The Great Winding Road (Herbert Jenkins, 7s. 6d.), but he has done it with.such a patronizing air, and in language so choked with hackneyed phrases that any sympathy one

might have had with his point of view is completely alienated by the end of the-first chapter. The best things in the book are the photographs, some of which are charming.