5iO 



could find but one specimen. The rest of my walk was of no inte- 

 rest to any one but myself, unless some good-natured sympathetic 

 botanist should feel interested in the information that I continued my 

 journey till half past 1 next morning, when I arrived, sadly way-worn, 

 at the place whence I had started on the 13th. 



The above, I fear, will be considered but a meager concern : ano- 

 ther day, and a knowledge of the Cryptogamia, of which I am igno- 

 rant, would have done much to render even my hasty excursion more 

 interesting. Morven, another mountain celebrated by Byron, which 

 I visited in 1841, does not present so wide a field as Loch-na-gar; it 

 possesses, however, considerable interest. By the side of a small 

 stream at its base I found the beautiful Sedum villosum, which I did 

 not detect either on Loch-na-gar or in its vicinity. 



Forres, March 8, 1843. J. B. Brichan. 



Art. CXXX. — A List of Mosses and Hepaticce collected in Eskdale, 

 Yorkshire. By Richard Spruce, Esq. 



York has been said by Mr. H. C. Watson to be " pre-eminently the 

 county of ferns;" and I think I may venture to assert that it is equal- 

 ly unrivalled in its mosses and Hepaticse. In proof of this I refer to 

 the valuable list of mosses in Baines's ' Yorkshire Flora,' the result 

 chiefly of the investigations of Messrs. Gibson, Nowell, Howarth &c. 

 in a very small portion of the county. Since Mr. Baines's work was 

 published, several most interesting species have been discovered, and 

 still a considerable part of the county remains unexplored. Our dales, 

 which afford a passage for a multitude of impetuous streams, are pe- 

 culiarly prolific ; and I have assigned to myself the pleasing task of 

 exploring them, in turn, as opportunity shall offer. The vale of the 

 Ksk, whose partial examination T have now to detail, terminates at 

 Whitby, fifty-one miles N.E. of York; the river flows nearly due east, 

 and receives during its course several smaller streams, issuing from a 

 like number of dales. The Whitby and Pickering railway enters Esk- 

 dale at Grosmont Bridge ; and from hence to Whitby (six miles) the 

 country is well wooded, and may be called romantic. The course of 

 the river forms a series of almost semicircular curves, now on the right 

 now on the left of the railway, which crosses it I suppose ten times in 

 that distance ; the south side of these curves is frequently a perpendi- 

 cular cliff", rising directly from the water's edge to a height of from 30 

 to 150 feet ; and having a northern exposure, is richly clad with mosses 



