54: NATURAL HISTORY OF NUNBURNHOLME. 



marshes near Lynn; flock after flock went past, and as some of these living 

 lines, to judge from appearance, were certainly not less than a mile in 

 length, some idea may be formed of their prodigious number. 



The lower part of the Fitties, which appeared at a distance of a bright 

 green colour, was covered with the jointed glass wort, Salicornea herbacea, 

 which is there gathered for samphire, and used for pickle. Each little plant 

 was covered by black crawling Ulvce; some of them so thickly, as to pre- 

 sent the appearance given to the tops of broad beans and other plants when 

 infested by the black aphis. In fact these little insignificant molluscs 

 actually gave a colour to the ground for miles, so very abundant were 

 they, and the shore was strewn everywhere with their dead shells. Outside 

 the marshes, left dry by the spring tides, I found a quantity of Syndosmya 

 tenuis and Cylichna obtusa, and a good deal of drift wood, bored by Pholas 

 crispata, several of whose shells I got out entire, and in fair condition. 

 These specimens were of the usual size, not half so large as the single 

 valves picked up at Mablethorpe, a variety I have also met with at Hun- 

 stanton, but a double specimen of which I have never yet seen. 



Uppingham, Rutland, October 14:th., 1857. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF NUNBURNHOLME. 



BY THE REV. F. 0. MORRIS, B.A. 

 (Continued from Vol. vii., page 271.) 



The Rectory House stands a little out of the village, westerly, near the 

 middle of one side of the glebe land, which consists of about ninety acres, 

 in the form of a square, with the exception, or addition, of one small 

 square field behind it. Two kitchen-gardens and the flower-garden, with 

 the churchyard, the latter a small square north of the house, give the 

 same form of a square to the whole of the premises, if taken in connection 

 with it on one side, and with a small orchard on the other, towards the south. 



In the first instance I intend to speak of the different birds, beasts, 

 plants, fishes, reptiles, and insects, which we have noticed in and about our 

 own flower-garden, etc., that is to say the square plot just spoken of, close 

 to the house, and afterwards of the productions of the remainder of the 

 parish. I am almost surprised myself when I think how much so small 

 a space has produced; but, in the first place, when wild creatures are 

 not disturbed, but encouraged, and, in the second place, when people use 

 their eyes to observe them, they will see more things than are "dreamt 

 of by those who have no sight but for the glaring objects which please 

 an acquired and unnatural taste. 



