1888-89.] A Few Notes on Bird Life, &c. 273 



shrub quite new to me : it formed a large bush about ten feet 

 high, with a stem about eight inches in diameter, and covered 

 all over with pendent nuts enclosed in a thin envelope, very 

 like the Cape gooseberry. The owner did not know the 

 specific name, so I brought a bough to Mr Lindsay, Cura- 

 tor of the Eoyal Botanic Garden, who at once pronounced 

 it the Staphylca pinnata, or five-leaved bladder-nut, indigen- 

 ous to the South of Europe. I learn that the nuts, being 

 hard and smooth, are strung for beads, and used by the 

 poor in Eoman Catholic countries in their devotions. 

 Parkinson says, " It groweth in many places in this land, 

 as at Ashford in Kent and at Milton near Cambridge." I 

 hoped to have driven over to Cheddar Cliffs, and procured 

 some plants of the pink [Diantlms ccesius) peculiar to that 

 locality. A botanist whom I met told me it had one advan- 

 tage over our D. deltoides in being very sweet-scented. But 

 the day fixed for our excursion there proved a perfect deluge, 

 so my nephew consoled me by stating that both cliffs and 

 pinks would keep till my next visit ! I found Somerset a 

 most charming county, and I would strongly advise any 

 one going to the South-west of England, by all means to 

 take the new Severn tunnel route. You turn off to the right 

 at Crewe, and pass through a fine country thence all the way 

 to Bristol, the counties being Cheshire, Shropshire, Mon- 

 mouth, Hereford, and Gloucester — getting into the valleys of 

 the Severn, the Teme, the Wye, the Lug, and the Usk, going 

 by a long tunnel under the Severn as you approach Bristol. 



My recent visit to Bristol brought to my remembrance my 

 former journey to that ancient city, as nearly as I can remem- 

 ber just half a century ago, and with a few remarks on that 

 visit I will conclude these rambling notes. It was a visit 

 remembered from two incidents — one, as to my travelling 

 companion ; and the other, as fixing an important date in the 

 history of steam navigation. It was during my legal clerk- 

 ship at Worcester that I was sent on professional business to 

 Bristol in the night-mail. I had only one travelling com- 

 panion, rather a stout man, who, wrapping himself in his 

 cloak, went fast asleep. I alighted to see the horses changed 

 at Tewkesbury, when I noticed a man with some letter-bags 

 look into the coach, and then go to the guard and remark, " I 



