100 YEARS AGO

In reviewing my child's book, “Beautiful Birds”, F. E. B., writing in your columns, says, “Why should he select the 'beautiful birds' only, and, by implication, condone the massacre of birds that have not that advantage?” The question is a misstatement of fact, which I hope you will allow me to show, though I can only do so by quoting myself. On the last page — which I daresay F. E. B. did not get to — there is this: “'Mother, promise not to wear any feathers except the beautiful ostrich feathers that you look so lovely in?' As soon as she promised, then all the beautiful birds in the world (and that means all the birds, for all birds are beautiful) will be saved,” &c. (The italics are mine). This is the final promise and the goal to which I have been leading. May I ask F. E. B. whether, if he wished to arouse a child's interest and sympathies in any subject, he would choose the more or less salient material to do it with? Edmund Selous

I would commend to Mr. Selous Dr. Samuel Johnson's sound remark concerning a quite analogous statement. An orchard, observed the Doctor, would be properly described as barren of fruit, even if subsequent research discovered a dozen apples and pears upon two or three trees. Now Mr. Selous' book is called “Beautiful Birds.” It is not called “Birds.” It is clear, too, what Mr. Selous means by “beautiful.” His plates and the greater part of his descriptions deal with the Paradiseidæ, Humming Birds, and other birds which everyone calls beautiful. I do not find chapter after chapter relating to partridges, quails, sparrows, and other “plain” birds. F.E.B.

From Nature 27 February 1902.

50 YEARS AGO

In Nature of January 19, p. 92, a translation was published of resolutions passed at a conference held in Moscow last June on the theory of chemical structure in organic chemistry. It was stated there that “The Conference has clearly demonstrated the soundness of the theory of the structure of organic compounds due to the great Russian scientist, A. M. Butlerov; this theory lies at the basis of the whole of modern organic chemistry”. The theory of resonance or mesomerism was said to be “directly opposed to the basic thesis of Butlerov's theory”, and it was condemned as physically untenable and sterile. Such sweeping claims require examination.

From Nature 1 March 1952.