The Mangotsfield detachment of Bristol Volunteers.
A Correspondent writes to the Scotsman, protesting against the omission of the grey plover from the list of birds to be protected under the Wild Birds Protection Act. "That the eggs," he adds, "are gathered by keepers and others for sale, should certainly be no argument; and any keeper might well be ashamed to watch a poor harmless bird all day through binoculars for the purpose of making a few shillings by the sale of its eggs." We live and learn. I have been eating plover's eggs for years without the least suspicion that the poor harmless mother-bird had been shamefully watched through binoculars by a keeper in search of shillings. All the same. I heartily indorse the suggestion that the plover should be protected.
Sir Donald Currie must have the eye of an eagle. Speaking at a luncheon held in Newcastle the other day in connection with the Trinity Presbyterian Church, he declared that "nothing had ever charmed him more than to observe at the luncheon that day the marvellous ability, but much more the marvellous unanimity and Christian fellowship manifested by the Nonconformist bodies." I doff my cap to the man who can infer not only marvellous unanimity and Christian fellowship, but also marvellous ability from his observation of bodies at luncheon. After this it must be the merest child's-play to navigate the Tantallon Castle to the Baltic Canal.
At a recent meeting of the Blackrock Town Commissioners, so I gather from the Freeman's Journal, Dr. Kough, the Vice-Chairman, objected to the adoption of a petition in favour of the Intoxicating Liquors (Ireland) Bill. He said the petition had been carried by a side-wind. Obviously, in the Doctor's opinion, the only thing to be done was to Kough-drop it.
THE ASCENT OF MAN.
["Professor Drummond's 'Ascent of Man' was discussed in the Assembly of the Free Church and very severely handled."—Daily Telegraph.]