Country Rambles: a Field Naturalist's and Country Lover's Note Book for a Year

Abstract

MR. WESTELL has made a serious mistake; he has let himself become the slave of his note-book. He seems to have made up his mind to write a year's diary for publication, with the result that he has filled it with trivialities which after a few pages will weary the reader, be he naturalist or not. On almost every page we find entries such as the following, which are taken quite at random:—“February 2. The snow will act as a deterrent on the singing of our feathered musicians, although I have often heard Robin and Wren singing in the very depth of winter, evidently cheered by the transient gleam.” “arch 21. I was tempted out into the garden early by the brilliant sunshine, and did a bit of gardening. Chaffinch ‘pinking.’ How delicate-looking the first Snowdrop as. it peeps through the brown earth!” “June 10 (among other similar entries). What a variety of small beetles cross the path of the rambler, like dark little jewels darting about in the sunlight! There are many hairy caterpillars too. Cannot they move at a rate ! How they curl up into the ball of protection!” No wonder that we read on the same page, “How often the Note-book comes out at this season! ”Mr. Westell's mind has been working more upon his note-book than upon nature, and he would do well to leave it behind him for some time to come, and to reconstruct his ideas of observation and of a naturalist's work. When he touches a difficult or doubtful problem, he shows us at once what manner of naturalist he is. On p. 125 we read that “an instance is recorded by Herr Muller (sic), a well-known German Naturalist, of a Cuckoo sitting on, and hatching, her own fledgling. Three Cuckoo's eggs were found by Herr Muller in a hollow under a tussock of grass, &c.“This statement seems to be taken from Dr. Japp's book on the Cuckoo; the Herr Muller is Adolf Müller, the forester; the occurrence he described, though, of course, in itself not impossible, has not been accepted by ornithologists whose opinions at any rate deserve some consideration, e.g. Prof. Newton, Mr. A. H. Evans, and Mr. Howard Saunders. Yet Mr. Westell retails this as a proved but extraordinary fact, without making the least attempt either to test the truth of it himself by going to the original source, or to collect the opinions of scientific naturalists on an alleged zoological fact of such great importance. He has to learn that there are other qualifications for a naturalist besides the constant companionship of a note-book and a binocular glass. We are very far from wishing to discourage the proper use of these, or the intelligent enjoyment and observation of nature, but what we cannot possibly encourage is the publication of bulky and expensive volumes like this (weighted, too, by photographs, only some of which are really excellent), which cannot satisfy the real naturalist or even the ordinary reader; and in this we are sorry to disagree with Mr. F. G. Aflalo, who has written a kindly preface to the book. It is to be hoped that Mr. Westell's love of the country and of nature will in the course of time be turned to better account.