AUTUMN IN THE NEW FOREST. 41 



Need I say that anyone can see that it would be ahiiost as easy 

 to use a piece of thin sheet brass or other metal as to use paper ? 

 I enclose the original instrument and a diagram. 



autumn in tbe IRew Jforcet 



By G. C. Turner. 



'"T^HE harvest is past, the summer is ended " ; the flowers 



J. which but a few short weeks since studded the fields 



with gold have departed now. The water-courses have 



lost their August glory, but there are still a few stragglers left by 



the waysides ; a few flowers seem loath to leave us and are 



lingering yet. 



Will a walk across the New Forest mean a blank day — 

 botanically speaking ? We will see. A walk of two-and-twenty 

 miles will do us no harm anyhow. As we have to catch a train at 

 the end of our ramble, we shall not have very much time for 

 serious search ; but even if we had time, people " who know '^ 

 say, " Never leave the New Forest paths unless you have a 

 compass with you. They are more easily lost than found again." 



Brockenhurst is our starting point, and we make straight for 

 Lyndhurst, the capital of the Forest. It is a lovely day in the 

 early autumn : the sun is blazing down upon us in July splendour, 

 intensifying the beauty of the woodland scenery, lighting up the 

 forest shades with broad flashes of sunlight, and throwing the 

 masses of foUage into beautiful relief. 



The ditches are bright with the flowers of the Lesser Spearwort, 

 growing in company with the Water Speedwell ( V. anagaiiis), 

 Water Mint, and Marjoram, whilst the Vervain grows freely by the 

 dry roadsides. The St. John's Worts are represented by Hyperi- 

 cum pulchnuii^ H. quadrangidiwi, and H. Androscemwn ; but the 

 plant which strikes us most is the tall Wood Spurge {Euphorbia 

 amygdaloides)^ with its leafy stem throwing out the slender branches, 

 which are crowned by pale-green, connate bracts. The parasites 

 are represented by the red Bartsia and the common Eyebright 

 (but not the httle Eyebright we are familiar with), some two or 

 three inches high. The plants here are fully ten or twelve inches 



