Notes.

Abstract

WE heartily welcome the new Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves. Its objects, as. officially stated, are as follows:?(i) To collect and collate information as to areas of land in the United Kingdom which retain their primitive conditions and contain rare and-local species liable to extinction owing to building, drainage, and disafforestation, or, in conr sequence of- the cupidity of collectors. All such inr formation to be treated as strictly confidential.,(2) To prepare a scheme showing which areas should be secured. (3) To obtain these areas and hand them over to the National Trust under such conditions as may be., necessary. (4) To preserve.for posterity as a national possession some part at least of pur native land, its fauna, flora, and geological features.. (5) To encourage the love of nature and to educate public opinion to a better knowledge of the value of nature-studv. The president is the Right Hon. J. W. Lowther, MiP., the hon. secretaries are Mr. W. R. Ogilvie-Grant and the Hon. F. R. Henley. The temporary address of the society is the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, S.W. There is no subscription. The principle of centralising -the various efforts already instituted in this country towards the preservation of its ” natural monuments ” has for some time past been advocated in these columns. The mechanism by which reservation is to be effected has already been put into operation by the acquisition of Blakeney Point in Norfolk. The highly successful scheme which has been worked in Prussia for some eight years is, we may note, governmental, and has a special commissioner, Dr. Conwentz, the pioneer of the movement, at its head. It seems to us that some such close connection with the national executive is essential for the full success of any society, however strong.