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become so thick as to be penetrable with difficulty, and the heath 

 has grown so tall and dense that every step immerses one up to the 

 middle, while the crevices being entirely hidden from view, every now 

 and then a prostration to mother earth becomes inevitable ; and be- 

 sides, the shade of the scene renders the progress precarious and uncer- 

 tain. 'Tis true, an occasional break in the sombre forest is delightful ; 

 the stony ravine winding among the trees, flanked on both sides by 

 tufts of flowering heath and ling, covered with humble-bees, booming 

 as they dashed off from blossom to blossom, and the opening expanse 

 of verdant meadows below, silvered with the windings of the infant 

 Severn, and backed by cloudy, frowning mountains, has a charming 

 effect ; but the want of a practicable path is rather a set-off to this, 

 for it is really difficult to keep erect where no bottom is perceptible. 

 After stumbling for a considerable time to very little purpose amidst 

 this overgrown accumulation, and occasionally digressing into a 

 ravine, we got to the top of the hill again, and proceeded to its 

 northern extremity. Here, while looking about for a convenient 

 place of descent, we came to a very remarkable and precipitous 

 fissure or chasm, extending from the top of the hill, at a very high 

 angle, apparently to the very bottom. Into this fissure we lowered 

 ourselves, and, unimpeded by plantations or bushes, effected an easy 

 though in some places rather nervous passage, by a natural glacis or 

 inclined plane, to the base of the mountain. In and about this fissure 

 I observed more plants than elsewhere on the Craig, which is unfor- 

 tunately at present so obscured by the larches. 



Some of the more interesting plants were Arabis hirsuta, Cardamine 

 impatiens, Hypericum montanum, Potentilla argentea, and Circaea 

 alpina. Here, too, many Hieracia were clustered and in full flower, 

 as H. murorum, H. maculatum, and the very curious and striking 

 form of H. Pilosella that has been designated Peleterianum. The 

 very attenuated lanceolate leaves of this form, densely fringed with 

 long extending hairs, and tufted at their extremities, with its tall 

 flowering- stalk, give it an aspect at first sight very peculiar. Many 

 of the leaves are three inches in length, and the single-flowered stem 

 more than six inches high, so that when compared with the stunted 

 form that grows on the Malvern hills, scarcely rising above half an 

 inch, which I have called hrevicaulis, it would scarcely be imagined 

 that they could possibly both belong to the same species. Indeed, 

 there seems this difficulty both with the Hieracii and the Rubi, that 

 the difference between varieties are quite as great as those existing 

 between alleged species. The H. maculatum of Smith, which I 



