PAPERS, ETC. 131 
trees which lie beneath them; and, instead of the Bishop 
of Winchester’s Porcarium, as I had last year ventured to 
suggest, from the scanty data then afforded, a grander 
pieture rises before us of the vale of Taunton in its youth- 
ful days, clothed with mishty forests, and every eminence 
at least capped with noble oaks, under which disported, 
not pigs, but the hyzna, the wild deer, the tiger, the bear, 
the elephant, the rhinoceros. 
I have another geological fact to announce—the dis- 
covery of what is commonly called a petrifying spring, on 
Pickeridge Hill, I believe, by the Rev. Mr. Stretch. 
These springs, holding calcareous matter in solution, and 
in such excess, that they readily part with some of it, and 
deposit it on whatever substance may lie in their course, 
which substance frequently perishes, and leaves only the 
calcareous case, though not uncommon, are yet sufliciently 
rare to justify our noticing them on such occasions as this. 
In ornithology, it may be worth mentioning, that the 
doubt which seems to have existed as to the plumage of 
the adult Montague’s Harrier, one of the hawks, has been 
removed by the acquisition of a nest of young birds and 
both the parents. The plumage of the male is of an wni- 
form leaden grey, with only very faint indications of bars 
on the tail. Mr. Yarrell has observed, that this bird has 
been found in Devonshire and Cornwall, and mentions a 
specimen from Dolgelly, but farther westward than this he 
had not traced it. Its occurrence, therefore, in Somerset- 
shire, was only a thing to be expected; and the wonder is, 
that it should not have been observed—or rather perhaps I 
should say distinguished-—here, till within these last few 
years; for the bird was known under the name of the 
black hawk, the specimens shot not having arrived at their 
adult plumage. 
