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ravines before alluded to, an occasional holly, yew or juniper, rising 

 betwixt the bare trunks, breaks with its black melancholy green the 

 sombre continuity of shade, only to make it more sombre and lifeless 

 still ; but on emerging from these pent-in valleys, and gaining the 

 outer escarpments, a scene of sylvan softness and variety succeeds, 

 and the beechen woodland, now open to the light of day and 

 animated with the song of birds and the hum of insects, no longer 

 oppresses the mind with a sense of loneliness and desertion as before. 

 The steepness of these hangers is such as in some places hardly to 

 afford footing to the explorer, and down the angles formed between 

 the smaller crests and ridges, the rains plough gullies in the chalky 

 ground called in the county " slidders," from their excessive slippery- 

 ness, and which it behoves him to descend with caution should he 

 choose them for his path to the plain below. These beechen uplands 

 abound with a variety of interesting plants and shrubs, some of them 

 rare and local, others common to them and the low country, as Mo- 

 notropa Hypopitys, Cephalanthera grandiflora and ensifolia, Her- 

 minium Monorchis, Helleborus viridis and foetidus, Daphne Laureola 

 and Mezereum, Pyrus Aria, Aquilegia vulgaris, Listera Nidus-Avis, 

 Convallaria multiflora, Ophrys apifera and muscifera, Epilobium an- 

 gustifolium, Taxus baccata, Rhamnus catharticus, &c. 



In the Isle of Wight the beech is far less abundant than on the 

 mainland near the coast, and the beautiful hanging woods of this tree 

 that form the pride of Hants and the adjoining counties of Surrey, 

 Wilts and Dorset, are quite wanting on our side of the Solent. Here 

 the beech occurs sporadically, and I have sometimes even thought it 

 might not be aboriginal in the island ; it appears, however, as if 

 quite wild in some of our rocky woods, as in Cowpit Cliff Wood, 

 near Shanklin, and elsewhere, but rarely, and never attains here to 

 any remarkable size except where it has been planted, as in Appul- 

 durcombe Park, which abounds with fine beech timber. In the New 

 Forest the beech grows detached and intermixed with oak, birch and 

 holly in open glades, and although attaining a large size, seldom, if 

 ever, forms woods of itself in the lower flat country, but only on the 

 hills. 



I shall not here enter upon the discussion of the question that has 

 been raised by a hw of those classical objectors who measure every 

 opinion by the standard of antiquity, and who would rather think 

 wrong with the ancients than be set right by Nature ; namely, that 

 the beech cannot be an aboriginal native of Britain, because Julius 

 Caesar tells us he found neither pine nor beech in this country at his 

 Vol. iit. 5 r 



