HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



183 



entire circle, and escape is hopeless ; so adhesive is 

 this secretion that the entire plant may be suspended 

 from the tip of a finger by only touching one of the 

 leaves. Associated with the sun-dew are the butter- 

 worts, and they may be found here in abundance. 



The solitude of the district is strikingly apparent. 

 The naturalist may revel without fear of interruption ; 

 few people are to be seen, and even the cottages 

 straggle and settle themselves in obscure corners ; 

 the villages have no cohesion, it is actually impossible 

 to be assured when you are in a village. When a 

 new cottage is contemplated, it is not built next door 

 to an old one, but is hidden in some obscure corner, 

 as far from human ken as possible. Hordle, about 

 two miles beyond, bears the palm in this respect ; 

 this unostentatious parish has carried the peculiarity 

 of scattering itself to so interesting a point that it 

 would seem as if the people had some idea of ascer- 

 taining how far neighbours could live apart and yet 

 be social. They may have an intense craving for 

 breathing room, or possibly they cultivate "strag- 

 gling " as a Fine Art, for it is a positive fact, that 

 although Hordle is a large and considerable parish, 

 take away the church and you could not find it, nor 

 could any one tell you where it was, except the 

 startling information that you were " in it." Taking 

 its focus of interest, the post-office, which is combined 

 with a bakery and general emporium (the only place 

 of business for miles around) as a centre, the village 

 takes to rambling, and with a cottage here and there, 

 rarely two together, it spreads in all directions, over 

 downs and commons, through " roughs," round 

 plantations, up back lanes, until its outskirts are lost 

 in the distant horizon, where its appetite for space is 

 somewhat appeased, but even then unsatisfied. It 

 originally started in the sea, for the surf now seethes 

 over the foundations of the old church. The present 

 churchyard is of considerable interest ; it was always 

 a drear and uncanny place, with its surrounding belt 

 of firs, and although of late years it has been much 

 improved and the church rebuilt, it is still a pecu- 

 liarly sombre spot, full of sad reminiscences : on one 

 side a couple of rows of nameless graves, the dead 

 and gone deluded Shakers — it may be remembered 

 that Hordle was the headquarters of the priestess of 

 these silly people ; on the other some little hillocks, 

 each marked with a small rude cross in wood, in- 

 scribed with one word — and that word a Christian 

 name — pitiable to see. These are the graves of 

 orphan babes, once the occupants of a so-called 

 "Home" — what mysteries these homes contain! — 

 established in the neighbourhood, uprooted, dispersed 

 by epidemic and death ; with straitened means the 

 fight was unequal, and ended in the churchyard ; 

 and perhaps it were better, for these deserted inno- 

 cents, it should be so. 



But in this churchyard there is a monument, carry- 

 ing an inscription of so extraordinary a character as 

 to deserve recording. In the district there is much 



interesting and curious folk-lore, but this is a speci- 

 men perfectly unique and authentic. Some years ago, 

 a gentleman of importance in the neighbourhood shot 

 himself in his library — the house where it happened 

 is well known. Among other testamentary wishes 

 he desired that over his grave should be erected a 

 granite memorial, on which was to be inscribed his 

 name, date of death, and the following declaration 

 (it cannot be called an epitaph) : — "Here lies the 

 Friend of the Poacher ! " nothing more ! It may be 

 imagined that such instructions somewhat puzzled 

 the executors, and the clergy especially. It was 

 conceived that so emphatic a declaration of friendship 

 emanating from a county squire, and through the 

 jaws of the grave, to such a class of men, might 

 prove a bad example, especially when constantly 

 paraded before the eyes of the rustics coming to their 

 church ; it certainly was not conducive to morality, 

 or, of far more importance, the preservation of game. 

 So in the perplexity of the situation, a plan was 

 devised to remove the difficulty ; it was possible, 

 at all events, to postpone the baneful influence of 

 this gentleman's sympathy, for at least another gene- 

 ration. So it was decided in carrying out the testator's 

 wish, to put it "delicately, in French," and to this 

 day may be seen, deeply cut in the granite, " Ci git 

 l'ami du braconnier." In another generation, the 

 School Board (if ever it reach Hordle) will frustrate 

 this artful and ingenious resource, and one may con- 

 template the poacher of the future with the last 

 French novel in his capacious pocket, reading this 

 message from the grave, and slapping his velveteens, 

 lamenting perhaps, with an expletive, the gross in- 

 justice done to his grandfather, who had passed away 

 without being cognizant of the friend he had lost, 

 bamboozled by a foreign language, and frustrated in 

 Nature's impulse to drop a tear over such honoured 

 remains. 



To the general naturalist the whole of this part of 

 Hampshire — to say nothing of its folk-lore — is of the 

 deepest interest ; to an entomologist, a Paradise r 

 Any one who can be contented with his own thoughts, 

 a few books of reference, a microscope and sketch- 

 book, may have a very good "time" by making 

 Lymington headquarters. Within a radius of five 

 miles he will find every diversity of broken country, 

 and an easy walk takes him to a sea-beach replete 

 with geological interest. Along the coast, from 

 Keyhaven to Barton, the strata are laid bare ; it is 

 said that nowhere in England is the Eocene better 

 displayed than at Hordle Cliff; the formations are 

 exposed and tilted up like the leaves of a book, dog's 

 eared, broken, and crumbling with the excess of fossil 

 remains. In the cliff below the amazing Past, in the 

 bogs above the inscrutable Present, and the Drosera, 

 the text of this little paper may be taken as the type 

 of some of Nature's intricate puzzles. 



E. T. D. 



Crouch End. 



