27G FAREWELL FACTS AND FAXCIES, 



June 14th. — Took my final ramble round our village^ and received a fine 

 bunch of the AspTenium adiantum niyrum, A. trichomenes, and the Osmunda, 

 also a root of the Yellow Pimpernel, {Anctijidlis Jiava.) This was brought 

 from the vale of Ovoca last autumn; but I would remark that in Cossey 

 Park, but a few miles from Norwich, it is a very abundant flower, with 

 the Wood Sorrel. 



June 17th. — I quitted Bawburgh Hill, and went to stay a few days in 

 a sweet rural village — Runhall, where I revelled mid a most prolific variety 

 of very sweet wild flowers, that everywhere were studding both lanes and 

 fields, and a fine old wood. I enjoyed this change from my usual engage- 

 ments; and though I owa I am fond of adding to my specimens, yet, on 

 this occasion, not having my press with me, I spared the soft things; and 

 so doing brings me no regret, although I lost several kinds that I really 

 needed. Of Ferns I saw the Lastrcea filix mas, the L. Gollina, and the 

 Polypodium phegopteris, with the Scolopendrium vuJgare. 



The wild boquet I gathered had among its contents the Marsh Orchis, 

 {Orchis latifoUa,) the Green- winged Meadow Orchis, (Orchis morio,) the Reed 

 Grass, {Poa aquatica,) the Borage, {Borago officinalis,) the Lady's Finger, 

 {Anthyllis vulneraria,) the Grass Vetch, {Lathyrus Nissolia,) this, instead of 

 being quite crimson, was a pure tohite; it was growing amid numbers of gay 

 blossoms, and it alone was emblematic of purity; no cause was at all visible, 

 why it should be white as the virgin snow; and I record this as the first 

 white specimen I have seen. The flowering Rush, (Butomus tcmhellatusy) the 

 Feather-foil, {Hottonia palustris,) and the Teasel, (Dipsacus fidlonnm.') 



From the 17th. to the 22nd., I devoted my time to travelling through 

 the rural districts of Norfolk. I paid an evening visit to the pretty church 

 of Kimberley, where the Lords Woodhouse rest in their tombs; and not 

 only in the porch, but in the church itself, the Swallows were discovered 

 with nests; our steps, intruding on the sacred quiet, disturbed them. What 

 a very beautiful trait is that of domesticity, belonging to the Jlirundinidce. 

 While the Window Swallow, {IT. ruslica,) remains with us, it certainly leads 

 us to class it with the 



"Household bird, 

 That wears the scarlet stomacher," 



for it not only selects our doorways, and roof trees, but imitates the Red- 

 breast, and makes God's house its home. It makes friends with man in all 

 places — amid city life as well as rural, and I doubt not, were it anti-migratory, 

 that we could easily tame it. It seems to evince the principle of friendship 

 by its very localities for nesting. I I'emember in 1849, noting a Swallow's nest 

 near the altar of the Roman Catholic Chapel, (St. Helen's,) Brentwood, and the 

 birds, during mass, flew darting over the worshippers' heads; and while the 

 discourse was given, sat on the rails of the altar, and softly 'twiddled.' 

 Over one of our windows at Bawburgh, for many years, nearly fifteen, I 



