THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



NATURAL HISTORY, 



MAY, 1833, 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. Notices on Natural Objects observed in a Ramble on 

 St. Valentine's Bay. By Rusticus of Godalming. 



Sir, 

 Yesterday was St. Valentine's day. I had the good luck 

 to meet with a companion as idle as myself, and as fond of 

 the smell of the fresh air ; and, without horse, dog, or gun, 

 we wandered up the sandy lane leading to Eshing. Near 

 the top of the lane we observed a whole family of 



The Long-tailed Tit threading the branches of an elm tree, 

 in search of insects. These little fellows are all fluff and 

 feather ; they seem to have no body at all, but to consist of a 

 lump of down, nearly round, with one long feather stuck in 

 the middle of it for a tail : their cry is weak, peevish, and 

 often repeated, and when frightened away from one tree they 

 go off to another in regular order, aU in a line, jerking up 

 and down, and holding out their long tails in a straight line 

 behind them : in this party were Jifteen, no doubt the hatch 

 of a single pair last year. 



[T)rdba verna.~] On the old bridge at Eshing we were 

 delighted to see a whole colony of that lovely little flower, 

 jDraba verna. Although it was the first time I had seen this 

 beautiful forerunner of spring, it seemed, from the quantity in 

 flower, to have been blooming for two or three weeks. I 

 brought home several plants of it ; one is now before me 

 growing and flourishing with plenty of earth on a sixpence : 

 it had nineteen leaves, and five full-blown flowers, yet no part 

 of it extends to the circumference of the sixpence. Is not 

 this the smallest flowering plant known ? It has long been a 



Vol. VI. — No. 33. o 



