xiv Appendix No. 1.
been ruined by the Metropolitan Board of Works. Twenty years ago he
used to see the wondrous and beautiful little " Sundew " (Drosera rotundi-
folia) at the back of Jack Straw's Castle. It had disappeared ; and he
was told that since the drainage of parts of the Forest, and since there
had come into fashion a rage for insectivorous plants, inciting the irre-
pressible Cockney to seek it out for his own purposes and advantage, that
Drosera had disappeared from many spots. Sphagnum, and a large num-
ber of other interesting things, had also been "improved away" from
Hampstead Heath, so that for the purposes of the humble and earnest
student of minute life the Heath had been spoilt—everything worth
seeking for had been killed off by the system of drainage. It was to pro-
test against that, and to lay the true facts of the case before the Verderers
and Conservators of the Forest, that he had spoken. They hoped to
obtain for the smaller beings that protection which was happily now,
in some measure at least, granted to wild birds and ancient monuments.
They asked that the Conservators should consider the scientific Cockney
as well as the Easter Monday Cockney in their preservation of Epping
Forest. [Loud applause.]
Mr. Harting said it was impossible not to approve the principle which
was involved in the proposition that Mr. Johnston had made on behalf of
Sir Fowell Buxton, and he was sure it would commend itself to every
sensible and humane person. On reading the circular he had been under
the impression that the proposition to be considered was whether some
application to Parliament should or should not be made to bring about so
desirable an object. It seemed, however, from what Mr. Johnston had
told them, that that was not the intention of Sir Fowell Buxton, and that
his proposition was rather to make an experiment in this county only ; it
was to ask landowners in that particular district between the rivers
Boding and Lea to instruct their keepers to abstain from wantonly
destroying certain birds. Mr. Johnston had, he noticed, referred only to
the birds, and had said nothing of the smaller Mammalia. A good deal
of this wanton destruction was due partly to prejudice and partly to
ignorance on the part of the keepers, and it seemed to him that that Club
might do a great deal of good in the way of instructing keepers, and in
helping to remove the ignorance which at present prevailed regarding the
habits and food of those species of birds and mammals which were to
be met with in the district referred to. The Society, for instance, might
appoint a committee of specialists, and invite each member of the com-
mittee to put on paper his ideas with regard to those species in his own
department which were likely to be found in the neighbourhood. It was
almost hopeless to expect that game-preservers would instruct their
keepers to allow stoats and weasels and polecats to have the run of the
place; being carnivorous animals they could not subsist without preying
on some of the creatures which it was the very object of game-preservers
to keep alive. With regard to birds, no doubt there was a great deal of
prejudice against hawks and owls. Against some of the species no doubt