COUNTRY LIFE
The Arrival of Timber
The provision of cheap, comfortable and beautiful cottages for rural labourers should be definitely promoted by the exhibition during the week of Mr. Patrick Abercrombie's designs for wooden houses. The Spectator, in the days of St. Loe Strachey, did valuable pioneer work on the subject, but since then the science of building or rather of making building materials has advanced essentially. The Timber Development Association, which fathers this exhibition of designs, has been greatly advanced by research work ; and the architects must take wood more seriously than of old. The chief objections to wood as the core of a dwelling-house have vanished before the advance of discovery. Wood may be indefinitely protected against any focm of decay or destruc- tion by insects and it can be made less inflammable than of old. The research workers can now ensure even elm, which is prone to the malady, from warping, and panels big enough to show the glorious grain can now be safely used. A system of nailing has been found which allows external elm boards to warp without damage or loss of efficiency ; and their use for this purpose is steadily extending. Since elm is much the commonest of our trees the wealth of England should be increased. One of the reasons why so much timber is wasted and becomes a burden rather than an asset is that there is no way of disposing of a small quantity. Personally I have had to pay for the removal of a few splendid trunks. If the Timber Development Association could provide pools for such supplies, small landowners would greatly rejoice and waste would be avoided.
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A Solved Problem
It is an odd chance that my experience this year closely coin- cides with that of a naturalist who has written to The Times on the food of the little owl, a subject that is more hotly and repeatedly argued than most. He reports that one of these alien owls was seen to descend upon a family of wild duck and kill them one by one. Precisely the same thing was watched by a large pond in Huntingdonshire. In this case the owls killed some and carried off others that had been previously killed by moorhen. The mystery has been that while all the analysts deny that young birds are eaten by the owl—as judged by the pellets—almost all field observers assert that they certainly kill and carry off young birds even if they do not devour them. Sir George Courthope and his keepers supplied one answer, which has not been generally accepted. They gave evidence that the owls carried off young pheasants but paid no further attention to the little corpses till the burying beetles got to work. Then they ate the beetles. The writer in The Times has some rather more easily credible facts. The owls ate only the brains of their victims, and this soft food could not, of course, be open to the detection of the analyst. This discovery—it is no less—discredits any judgement founded solely on the examination of the regurgitated pellets with which most owls surround their roosts and roosting places. The eyes of the field observer gave the truest witness.
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Owlish Friends The owls, as a race, play a valuable part in the economy or the balance of nature. The little owl (though most of us regret its introduction into this country) certainly prefers beetles before other food. The brown owl—with his musical host—is highly predacious and will take sitting birds off the nest. Since it is at home in towns or at any rate in suburbs and residential quarters, it multiplies, perhaps unduly, and reduces the number of small birds in the gardens ; but in spite of such sins it is more severe on fur than feathers, though it seems to change its tastes for the worse when nesting near human dwellings. - The short-eared owl- has such a preference for the vole that an excess of these destructive little, creatures, which occurs periodically, is almost invariably accompanied by an immigration of their chief enemy. The barn-owl, by general confession, to which now even game- keepers subscribe, is wholly beneficial to man The multi- plication of both the little and the tawny owl is largely due to the fact that they are almost as much at home underground as in trees. In my district ferreters frequently bolt the little owl from rabbit burrows. More Brown Squirrels
It is worth noticing that the grey squirrels are very much less numerous than they were. The Oxford biologists, who have made a special inquest into the periodic ups and downs of animal population, will probably attribute this to natural oscillation ; but the campaign against this squirrel, led chiefly by game preservers, has been drastic. The brown squirrel has been multiplying (so far as my information and observation go), thanks perhaps to importation. Many of the squirrels are not English but Austrian (if the word still exists), and the imported pairs have flourished as pairs of Hungarian partridges have flourished. Importation of new species or varieties is usually, though not necessarily, a mistake and should only he allowed under the strictest scrutiny. No one—whether Duke's son or cook's son—should have liberty to import. No objec- tion need be raised against importing animals—the partridge and the brown squirrel, for example—which are virtually identical with the home race.
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Astraea Redux
Last week in a garden just twelve miles from London, but intensely rural nevertheless, I was called out to see two butter- flies that had settled, as they love to settle on a Buddleia varia- bilis. One of the two was, according to expectation, a Red Admiral, which is peculiarly fond of this flower. It is perhaps the very loveliest of all our butterfles, lovely even when it rests, as this one rested, with closed wings. The other butterfly provided a rare surprise. It was a greater tortoiseshell, a species that I have not seen for years. The lesser tortoiseshell is, of course, one of the very commonest, though this year it has not mobbed the Michaelmas daisies in quite its usual numbers. The greater, which used to be at least tolerably common, has entirely disappeared of late from a number of its old haunts. It has reappeared this season, I believe, in Sussex and perhaps we may be allowed to hope that if it is approaching London it is really beginning to flourish once again. It is glorious even alongside the Red Admiral.
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Southern Redpolls
Are the bird books wrong in their accounts of those attractive linnets or finches known as the Redpolls ? I am told by observant lovers of birds in Dorsetshire that parts of the coast are per- petually inhabited by Mealy Redpolls, which nest under close observation in one garden at any rate. Their pleasant and continuous chattering has been pleasantly described to me with persuasive detail about their ways. Of course, the lesser and mealy are extremely alike, and further it is possible to mistake either for a Siskin ; but it is denied by authorities that either Mealy Redpoll or Siskin ever nests in the southern counties, and the Mealy Redpoll is usually described as a rather rare winter visitor, restricted even in that season to the northern counties of England. The latest books are a little less dogmatic, but of the same general opinion. Even if these Dorset birds were lesser Redpolls the record is of interest. May it be that the Redpolls are an increasing tribe like the Dartford Warblers? * * * *
In the Garden The brightest thing at this moment (not excepting the dahlias and a clump of Christine roses) is a bed of which the centre is composed wholly of one of the rather rare dwarf varieties of that bright annual Alonsoa. The bed is as bright now as it was in July, which is the conventional date. The plant is classed as a half-hardy, is sown in boxes in the early spring and planted out in April. It did all that was expected of it at the normal date ; but a good deal more than was expected later. It was cut hard and regularly as soon as the flowers began to go off ; and the present blaze is the very thorough reaction to this treatment. The method, of course, is not novel, but the season has suited such treatment peculiarly well. The orange-red flowers consort well with the yellow-orange of some of the marigolds. This annual is sometimes known as the mask plant, and its native home is Peru. It is not doubtless so lovely a thing as, say, Nemesia, but it is an annual well worth a wider popularity than it has received ; and the simple device of securing a second blossoming appears to agree particularly well with the species. How much we owe to the struggle common to nearly all annuals to reproduce themselves when
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