52 A MIDWINTER MONTH 



little village of Turbia, the road gradually descends along the face 

 of the cliffs, affording glimpses of Monaco, far below. Next it 

 passes below Roquebrune, a village remarkable for the way in 

 which the houses have been built into and among several gigantic 

 masses of conglomerate, which must have rolled down the hill 

 from above. From near here I saw Corsica again shortly after 

 sunset, this time fainter than in the morning. Soon the base of 

 Cap Martin was reached, and then Mentone, at a total distance 

 from Nice of about i8 miles. 



The following morning Corsica was again visible at about 7 a.m. 

 In the afternoon I walked up the Cabrolles valley, or Val de 

 Boirie. The carriage road then stopped at an oil mill, and 

 the path followed the right bank of the stream till it crossed over 

 to the village of Cabrolles by a rustic stone bridge. On wander- 

 ing about the lemon and olive plantations near here, I found some 

 fine trap-door spiders' nests, constructed by Nemesia mande?-stjernce, 

 a spider which not only excavates a tube, lines it with silk, and 

 furnishes it with a flap door, but also adds an upward branch some 

 way down, separating it from the rest with an inner door, so 

 constructed that it can close off the whole lower portion of the 

 nest against the intrusion of an enemy. Of plants I found a few 

 capuchins [Arisarum vulgaris) still out, some fine fronds of 

 Asplenium adiantum nigrum^ var. acutu?7i, one or two Jersey ferns 

 (Gram7Jiitis leptophyHa), and a quantity of plants of Anemo7ie 

 coronaria growing thickly over the terraces, but with no flowers. 



The ridge flanking the valley on its left side near Mentone is 

 called the Arbutus ridge, from the number of arbutus trees 

 growing on it, and some enterprising genius has constructed a 

 road from the valley below to the top of the ridge, ascending by 

 a series of zigzags — a kind of Jacob's ladder arrangement, 

 remarkable as a piece of engineering, but not as an object of 

 beauty. It joins a footpath along the ridge, close by a hedge 

 of beautiful roses, and on descending the ridge lovely views are 

 obtained of Mentone, through the foreground of pines and 

 arbutus trees. Here grew very luxuriant plants of Dia^ithus saxi- 

 fragus, Alyssum saxafile, Fu77iana spachii^ etc., all in full flower, 

 and I also saw a Clouded Yellow Butterfly flying about among the 

 pines. 



