SOME DEW-PONDS IN DORSET. 29 



knees, stuck two fir fronds on his head to represent 

 horns, and pulled from his pocket a letter he chanced to 

 have with him, and began reading it by the light of the glow- 

 worms. The men approached, stopped suddenly, and then 

 bolted at the top of their speed down the hill and disappeared. 

 In a few days there was a rumour in the neighbourhood 

 that the devil had been seen at midnight by " Greenhill 

 Pond," reading a list of his victims by glow-worm light. 

 He tried afterwards to discover who the men were, but they 

 never revealed their identity. 



No. 7. 



Another pond worth a visit is " Rushy Pond," situate on 

 the South side of Piddletown Heath near the trackway 

 leading from Bhompston northward to Yellowham Bottom, 

 at the point "where the trackway intersects the old Roman 

 Road from Dorchester, through Weatherby Castle to Badbury 

 Rings. This pond is of a different form and character from 

 that last described, and appears to be fed from the surface 

 water collecting at this point from the trackway and the 

 Roman Road, and I think should be classed as a " Catch- 

 pond." It has seldom, if ever, been known to be dry. 



No. 8. 



Through the courtesy and with the assistance of Mr. Arthur 

 Symonds, of Wolfeton Manor, I examined in August last 

 (1911) a very ancient pond on the Wolveton Estate, on 

 what was formerty a part of the Charminster Down, near the 

 Northern boundary, between that parish and Piddlehinton. 

 This pond, which is seldom dry, is placed on the Down, 

 swept by the thick sea mists from the South-west, some 500 

 feet above sea level. Its situation is at the foot and on the 

 south side of a steep declivity covered with thick brush- 

 wood and high gorse, with an ancient overhanging beech 

 tree on the west. It is 32 feet in diameter and some 7 feet 



