27 



WH WMm f aturalists' Jdtl ^^vik 



MEETING AT PONTRILAS, 

 Friday. June 25th, 1869. 



The trysting spot for the second Field Meeting of the year was the Station 

 at Pontrilas, and there, on Friday morning, a goodly company assembled for the 

 day's investigations. The spreading Bell-flower (CamiMinda patula), which has 

 a liahitat on the high road just by, was not out to welcome them. The route was 

 taken across some pleasant meadows for the high common of Ewyas Harold. 

 The success of the day was very quickly established on high poetical authority, for 

 Bishop Mant has said — 



" Well boots it the thick mantled leas 



To traverse : if boon Nature grant 



To crop the insect seeming plant 



The vegetable Bee : or nigh of kin 



The long-homed Butterfly." 



For on the brow of the hiU the Bee orchis, Ophrys apifera, was found in great 

 perfection and in great number, and throughout the day's walk an abundance 

 of the sweet scented Butterfly orchis, in both its varieties, Habenaria bifolia, and 

 H. chlorantha, was gathered. The Yellow- wort, Chlora perfoUata, and its bright 

 sister, the pink Centaury, Erythraa centaurium, were also growing abundantly 

 in the limestone gravel of the brow of the hiU, and on the common itself the pretty 

 creeping ^^. John's-wort, Hypericum humifusum, was in flower, and those who 

 looked closely might observe plants of the autumnal Gentian, Gentiana Amarella, 

 not yet in flower, r.nd could not fail to see the common cudweed, Filago 

 Germanica, shooting up everywhere. 



The day, like so many we have lately had, was over-cast and hazy ; and 

 whether this may be due, aa has been said, to the fact that just now the sun 

 presents an unusual cumber of spots on its surface or not, it certainly was not 

 favourable for the full enjoyment of the fine rich prospect this common affords on 



