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instruments than forked hazel and wych-elm twigs his power of 
finding water, using wires and straight sticks, which exhibited 
similar sensitiveness when grasped by his hands. Many of the 
members tried their powers with the rods, some without any 
results, but others found they were possessed with the dowser’s 
art or knack. Thanking Mr. Chesterman for his interesting 
exhibition, the party ascended to the summit of the hill, with a 
view of verifying the presence in quantities thereon of a minute 
object of great microscopical beauty and entomological interest, of 
which Col. L. Blathwayt, who was unable to join his brother 
members of the Field Club through ill-health, had forwarded a 
written description. When the party were assembled on the 
summit, the Secretary of the Club read the Paper, and as 
many visitors to this fortified British earthwork, the original 
acropolis of the pre-historic city of the goddess Sul, may be glad 
of the information, we here give the learned Colonel’s description 
of this entomological curiosity :— 
If anywhere on the flat top of this hill (Little Solsbury) you will pick 
up at random a piece of stone and examine it closely, you will probably 
find upon it some small white spots, which, examined by a pocket lens, 
look like minute fungi. 
One day during the very dry weather of the spring of last year 
41893) I first noticed these, and found that they were the eggs of 
a species of acarus, Petrobia lapidum. After several microscopical 
examinations, I came to the conclusion that the entire top of Little 
Solsbury, some twelve acres in extent, was covered with these eggs, on 
an average one hundred to the square centimetre, or not less than 
four thousand millions on these few acres of ground. 
Large numbers of these eggs hatched during the summer, and by 
this time the remains of their empty shells have probably disappeared, 
though many were still unhatched in November last, when some 
‘stones were brought me from this hill. 
These eggs are very beautiful objects and will well repay the 
_ trouble of a microscopic examination. The white specks are not the 
eggs themselves but their covers, consisting of a white, paper-like 
substance, flat or slightly concave at the top, and tapering below to 
