castle, and a little below it, at the Bone-well, which was kno\vn to Camden, 

 and commemorated by Drayton in his Polyolbim as 



That prodigious spring 

 That little fishes' bones continually doth cast. 



The poet dear to tourists and pedestrians was wrong about fishes, and should 



have written " frogs," as it is now generally agreed, and as was pointed out by 



Sir Roderick Murchison, who says that " this phenomenon results from the 



usual sloping position of the Ludlow rocks, which, while it desiccates the 



higher parts of the ridges tends to produce natural springs near the foot of 



these inclined planes wherever the strata are affected by faults near the 



junction of the rock and Old Red Sandstone. The faults however act more 



particularly as dams to the water and occasion springs." (Siluria, 1st Ed., p. 



250). We were permitted to inspect some of the minute bones which had 



been gathered from the well, and heard a discussion on the best mode of 



skeletonizing a frog for the purpose of comparison. 



Leaving the Bone WeU, which a classical traveller compared to Egeria's 



grotto, the club proceeded up the dingle across Hanway Common into the 



Haye Park, pausing in groups to notice the P. Dryopteris (or oak fern), and 



the P. Phegopteris (or beech fern), rarer than formerly in this favoured 



demesne through having suffered many things of many too ardent naturalists, 



though at the close of the day the President of the Woolhope Club had the 



satisfaction of believing that his allies and followers on this occasion had 



respected his earnest injunctions, and kept their trowels in their pockets or 



knapsacks. Of ferns indeed and vnld flowers, soft turf and sunny dells, and 



lovely woodland scenery there was no lack, and the day, neither too hot nor 



too cool, favoured the ascent of the Comus Dingle by the pedestrians, whose 



groups and knots added to the effect of the landscape, until at length they 



reached an appointed rendezvous near a large and shattered ash, where in the 



vicinage of Haye Park House was erected the tent for the lunch, and where, 



before that interesting ceremony, the following letter from the Rev. C. H. 



Myddleton was read : — 



Lingen Vicarage, Presteign, June, 1873. 



My dear Sir, — I have made a few rough notes since I came here which 

 are very much at your service, and as no observations honestly made are 

 really worthless to a naturalist, mine are offered through you to your Club as 

 a contribution towards that exhausting series of Transactions which are only 

 equalled by the Tyneside papers, several of which are on my shelves. 



First of all I should like to see your districts somewhat sub-divided — • 

 thus No. 10 takes in an area of Old Red, Umestone (Aymestry), and Silmnan, 

 i.e., Wenlock and other shales. The flora will differ materially in the various 

 parts of this area, and while one side of No. 10 will hardly have a single jtlant 

 which No. — has not, the other side may vary considerably. 



Thus, Verbena officinalis grows near Wigmore, Hyoscyamtis nigee ditto ; 

 neither one nor the other is on this side Deerfold ; and while Chy!-:opleiuum 



