HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



231 



We quote Carlyle — "Latter, Day Pamphlets" — 

 " The real Administration, practical management of 

 the Commonwealth, goes all awry ; choked up with 

 long accumulated pedantries, so that your appointed 

 workers have been reduced to work as moles ; and it 

 is one vast boring and counterboring, on the part of 

 eyeless persons irreverently called stupid." 



Matthew Arnold : — 



" To a Republican Fkiend. 



" If to despise 

 The barren optimistic sophistries 

 Of comfortable moles, from what they do 

 Teaches the iimit of the just and true 

 (And for such doing they require not eyes)." 



Drummond, Natural Law — " Degeneration " : — 

 " There are certain burrowing animals — -the mole for 

 instance — which have taken to spending their lives 

 beneath the surface of the ground, and Nature has 

 taken her revenge upon them in a thoroughly natural 

 way — she has closed up their eyes." 



Here is enough in all conscience to make the whole 

 tribe of moles protrude their eyes for the sole purpose 

 of weeping over the injustice and inaccuracies of 

 even great men ; but courage, Talpa Europcca, you 

 have still a champion in the person of the great 

 naturalist Wood, and we may yet find it possible to 

 manufacture an excuse for your detractors. Far away 

 in the very south, of Europe, I understand that you 

 have a cousin ( Talpa acca, by name) whose eyes are 

 always covered by the eyelid. 



Was this the mole that Aristotle dissected ? and 

 were Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, and Drummond 

 aware of its existence? Charity — Let us hope all 

 things. 



N. F. Layard. 



Turleigh, Bradford-on-Avon. 



AROUND HASTINGS IN AUGUST. 

 By the Rev. IIilderic Friend, F.L.S. 



WELL as I know the Hastings District, I never 

 more thoroughly realised what a paradise it 

 is for the naturalist, whatever his particular line of 

 study may be, than during my recent visit there 

 in the August vacation. I had gone down pre- 

 pared to bring away anything that might come in 

 my way, from a foraminifer to a whale, or a micro- 

 fungus to an ammonite. Botany had the first place ; 

 the vegetable parasites being special objects of desire ; 

 but conchology, entomology, geology, archaeology, 

 and other 'ologies were each to be allowed a share of 

 my attention. I will only say of conchology that, 

 with the exception of Helix Canliana, II caperata, 

 and H. virgata, I found few land shells in any 

 quantity, while marine shells were scarcely to be 

 expected until some stronger winds had blown and 

 churned the sea into a rage. So with marine algce, 

 zoophytes, and other marine objects. But what I 



failed to obtain from this rich locality by personaL 

 research, my friends on the spot supplied, and many 

 a rich seaweed, curious sponge, and many cham- 

 bered zoophyte now lies lodged in my cabinets which, 

 before were mine only in name. In entomology I 

 had the pleasure of spending a couple of dajs with, 

 the venerable rector of Guestling — no mean authority 

 on almost every branch of Hastings natural history — 

 and another gentleman, and such things as Volucella 

 iiianis, various beautiful ichneumons, Slrangalia 

 armata, Aphodium, &c, from different orders of 

 insects were the fruit of our excursions. The castles 

 at Hastings, Pevensey, Camber, and Hurstmonceux,, 

 with the abbey at Battle, and the various churches,, 

 and other buildings in the neighbourhood proved a 

 feast of fat things, and many details are still left 

 unmastered, as a bait for another time. 



It was among the wild flowers, and their pests, 

 however, that I was able to do the most work, and it 1 

 is my purpose here to enumerate a few of the 

 principal finds in these departments of science. 

 Respecting the flowering plants, it is not to be 

 expected that anything very new or startling can be 

 advanced. Still, it may interest my readers to know 

 what they may hope to find after midsummer in this, 

 district, and where to look for the same. The best 

 thing of all probably is the rare Ccntanrca Jacca,. 

 which the Rev. E. N. Bloomfield, M.A., of Guest- 

 ling, has found in several places in the neighbour- 

 hood of Fairlight and Guestling. Ettfragia viscosa is 

 said to grow about Bexhill, but I had the good 

 fortune to alight on it in a field on the skirts of 

 Archer Wood beyond Battle. The pretty white 

 fumitory abounds on the Crumble, between Wallsend 

 and Eastbourne, where may also be found the yellow 

 horn poppy, the clematis, plenty of Silcnc maritima,, 

 the wood groundsel, covered with its golden rust 

 (Coleosporium Senecionis), the black thorn with its- 

 leaves ruddy under the influence of rolystigma 

 rubrum, &c. The spiny knapweed {Centaurca calci- 

 trapa) is abundant here too, while the arrow-grass - 

 (Triglochin), frog-bit (Hydrocharis), various species- 

 of polygonum, typha, water milfoil, pondweeds, and 

 other marsh-loving plants grow in great luxuriance 

 between Pevensey and the sea. On the castle, as 

 well as at Hastings, the fennel [Fceniculum vulgare) 

 blooms ; the viper's bugloss makes a glorious show,, 

 and the common storksbill thrives on shingle, sand, 

 and rock. Tansy, beet, and celery — favourites in 

 our gardens — are but a few of the plants found in the 

 Hastings district, which, under cultivation, have been 

 made a blessing and boon to man. The medlar and' 

 checker, or wild service-tree, both bear fruit here, and 

 have every appearance of being truly wild. The bog 

 asphodel, gentian, sundew, lesser skullcap, violet,, 

 and other bog-loving plants are to be found by such. 

 as know where and how to search. The Tutsan 

 {Hypericum Androscemum), known locally as amber,, 

 is common, but //. elodis is only sparingly found.. 



