254 A BOTANICAL TOUR THROUGH SOUTH WALES, &c. 



Selborne) that this is an error, and that the tail is moved up and down — an 

 assertion which we have recently ascertained to be perfectly true. 



We intended to have here recorded tha observations on the Sibilous Locustell 

 promised in a former number (p. 165); but as we have at present neither time 

 nor space for the purpose, we are compelled to postpone them. 



Campsall Hall, July 1, 1837. 



A BOTANICAL TOUR IN HEREFORDSHIRE, MONMOUTHSHIRE, 

 AND SOUTH WALES; 



WITH INCIDENTAL NOTICES OP THE SCENERY, ANTIQUITIES, &C. 



By Edwin Lees, F.L.S., M.E.S.L., &c. 

 (Continued from p. 208.) 

 I left Swansea for Neath early in the morning, but making no stay at the 

 latter town, pushed on for the " Lamb and Flag" in Glyn Neath, which I had 

 ascertained to have assumed of late years the aspect of a comfortable inn ; and 

 in this respect I recommend travellers, more especially scientific ones, not to be 

 regardless of good quarters, or leave any thing to chance under the hope of an 

 adventure, which may often prove any thing but agreeable. The outer man 

 must be sustained if science is to profit effectually, and after a hard day's effort 

 nothing is more unpleasant than not to be able to take one's ease in one's inn. I 

 shall leave others to descant upon the " Nidum of Antoninus," which Neath is 

 said to be, and I have not a word to say in favour of the grim ruins of its abbey, 

 shrouded in dust and smoke, and which Donovan, who travelled this way thirty 

 years ago, says, " fail to excite that pensive musing of the mind which buildings 

 far less important will sometimes inspire." I will only, while I am enjoying 

 the good cheer of mine host of the Lamb and Flag, just intimate, by way of 

 episode, that some years previous, when an entire stranger to this part of the 

 country, I had walked from Neath to Melincourt to see the celebrated cascade 

 at that place. ( Here, while seated in the dingle on a massy stone some wintry 

 flood had hurled from the precipice, amidst tall rank plants of (Enantke crocata, 

 spreading forth their white umbels, and purple stamens, and with my eyes fixed 

 on a black sullen trunk that, with leafless arms, stood like a spectre on the rock, 

 I listened to the patter of the water as it fell and splashed, and dashed a cloud of 

 rime on all the trees around. While thus absorbed in meditation, I was startled 

 as I turned rftund, by the sight of a stranger with a black knapsack on his 

 shoulders, who, like me, was intent on a tour in search of the picturesque. 



