and generous reception they had given to the Club to-day. The Rev. E. Blight 

 and J. H. Knight, Esq., were elected members of the Club, and several new 

 members were proposed. Sundry other business announcements were made. 

 The President read an excellent and appropriate paper " On the Mode of Growth 

 of Mistletoe," by the Rev. E. Blight, which created some little discussion ; and, 

 lastly, a well-written paper, " Notes on the Natural History of Aymestrey," by 

 the Eev. Thomas "Woodhouse, was heard with much satisfaction. 



The signal for advance was given, and in joyous humour the gentlemen set 

 forth towards the Camp, the highest ground in the forest. The way led through 

 the Haven fold-yard, through the orchards that had produced the excellent cider 

 for which the forest is noted, and along the side of the Haven dingle, a deeply 

 scooped coomb of denudation, clothed on either hand with trees picturesquely 

 disposed. They were all of modern growth, and did not recall the days of Eobin 

 Hood so well as stern gnarled oaks, wych elms, and other forest denizens of 

 English birth would have done, yet they gave a most pleasing aspect to the scene, 

 and inspired sylvan thoughts with that "Divine oblivion of low thoughted care," 

 only to be obtained away from the contentions of the busy world. Under the 

 eye were numerous horse-chesnut trees beauteous in their white corymbs of 

 conspicuous flowers, while on the opposite side of the glen were dark masses of 

 firs and larches — the attempt of man to clothe the rugged surface of Nature's 

 baldness with the garment of utility. The indigenous forest is gone, but the 

 planter restores it in another form. 



The views were good and varied as the path wound round the head of the 

 dingle towards the "Encampment" as it is called, and as the whole extent of 

 forest was surveyed it could be seen to be "a valley of elevation," as geologists 

 term it, of the Lower Ludlow rocks, not isolated, but stretching away to the 

 west out of sight. " The Encampment " itself is a mere circular trench in the 

 centre, planted inside with a ring of Scotch firs, with another ditch almost 

 obliterated, inclosing the high ground of the hill. It would seem only to have 

 been occupied for some temporary purpose. Ralph de Mortimer may have formed 

 it during his attack on Edric Earl of Shrewsbury, who then held Wigmore Castle ; 

 but, in the absence of all relics left by the occupiers, whether it may have been 

 British or Mediaeval can only be the subject of conjecture. From the highest 

 point of the hill a wild yet exciting prospect is exhibited, characteristic of this 

 sparsely populated part of Herefordshire, for scarcely a church or human habi- 

 taion comes into the range of unassisted vision, and Cowper's "lodge in some vast 

 wilderness " seems truly exemplified. Only deep glens and hills rising one behind 

 another, brilliant in the foreground with golden gorse in its culmination of 

 flowering, or shadowed by the passing cloud in the middle distance, rise before 

 the wondering view, till the horizon is bounded by the blue eminences of Shrop- 

 shire, like precipitous walls propping the heavens. 



" The bursting prospect spreads immense around, 

 Stretch'd over hill and dale, and wood and lawn, 

 With verdant field and darkening heath between, 

 To where the broken landscape by degrees 

 Ascending roughens into rigid hills 

 That in the far horizon dusky rise." B 



