100 



The object of the present communication is to record (so far as 

 memory serves me) some of the rarer plants which we met with in the 

 morning's excursion. And I do this the rather, because Whittlesea 

 Mere itself, together with its surrounding Fens, is doomed at no very- 

 distant period to be converted into useful, homely, arable, and pasture- 

 land ; when of course its botanical and entomological treasures must 

 be for the most part, if not entirely, annihilated. Many of the aqua- 

 tic plants no doubt will continue to maintain their position, and 

 flourish in the dykes ;* for the dykes, I presume, must still remain, 

 and be kept up for the sake of more effectual and permanent drainage. 

 But alas ! for the more rare and choice objects in each department of 

 Natural History. Just the very things which naturalists would be 

 most anxious to have preserved are quite sure to be destroyed ! The 

 water of the Mere was drained off last summer (1850) ; and in conse- 

 quence Peterborough Market was (as I am informed) glutted to over- 

 flowing with the fishf that had been taken on the occasion. Cultivation 

 had been gradually creeping on for many years past; and the plough 

 had in various parts made no inconsiderable inroads on the Fens. If 

 I am not misinformed, some parts near Yaxley where in 1840 we had 



* These d^-kes, at least tlie broader ones, were, I suppose, once of a good deptb in 

 water, but are now much choked up with mud. We heard some mention made about 

 a tradition of a human skeleton having been once discovered in one of the dykes, in 

 an erect position ; supposed to have been that of some unfortunate person who, having 

 lost his waj', accidentally got into the dyke, and was suffocated. The story, T believe, 

 referred to a period long gone by. 



We witnesed a boat-load of hay conveyed along a dyke, which presented a singu- 

 lar appearance. As the dyke itself was not apparent at a little distance, it seemed as 

 though the load and boat were quietly traversing the land. We found on a nearer 

 approach that the vessel was being punted through liquid mud, which it propelled 

 forward. As the width of Pthe boat or punt was nearly equal to that of the dyke in 

 which it swam, the surface of the latter — whether to call it water or mud I scarcely 

 know — was put in motion for a considerable distance ahead of the vessel ; I should 

 think for perhaps twenty yards or more the whole surface of the dyke was in agitation. 

 Altogether here was a sample of rude navigation, of a character we had never before 

 witnessed. 



f The bare mention oi fish, as connected with the Fens, calls to mind the dexte- 

 rity evinced by a young fen-man in securing an eel which he had observed to enter a 

 hole in the bank-side of one of the dykes. He first stuck his spade close to the mouth 

 of the hole, in order to cut off the eel's retreat, and prevent its escaping again into the 

 dyke. Then with another spade he dug down into the bank perpendicularly, till he 

 came upon the eel, which he immediately caught, skinned, gutted, and completely 

 prepared for the frying-pan, in less time almost than it takes to pen this brief state- 

 ment of the exploit. We remarked to him that it was not the first time he had served 

 an eel so. 



