1 86 LAKES AND RIVERS, 



pected preserve for many years, but the dry weather 

 had caused the fish for miles to congregate in it. I 

 returned home all slimy and a fearful figure of dirt, 

 but immensely excited with my day's fishing, which 

 had I not seen I would not have believed. 



The Exe, on which stands the ancient and pretty 

 city of Exeter, rises in Exmoor, a hilly part of Somer- 

 setshire. It flows into the English Channel at Ex- 

 mouth, one of the beautifully-situated watering-places 

 for which the county is so celebrated. The views 

 from the banks above the mouth of this river, which 

 there forms an estuary navigable to Topsham, four 

 miles from the sea, are very beautiful though not 

 grand or so romantic as those from the Dart. The 

 banks of the Exe afford a great number of fine plants, 

 among which may be mentioned the Marsh Marigold 

 (Calantha vulgaris\ with its magnificent golden blos- 

 soms; the Purple Loosestrife (Ly thrum salicaria), with 

 its richly and finely-cut purple flowers arranged in a 

 spike ; several species of Sedges (Carex) ; the Yellow 

 Iris (Iris Pseud-Acorus\ the hairy Willow Herb (Epi- 

 lobium hirsutum\ and the Water Star-wort (Callitriche 

 vernd). In a wood a little away from the bank of the 

 Exe, about three miles from Exeter, in the month of 

 May, the author, with a few friends, passed a day. 

 "It was a fine season and vegetation displayed 

 the glowing precocity of a youth of genius. W r e 

 alighted on the greensward and entered a copse ; the 

 Harebell (Hyadnthus non scriptus\ the Primrose 

 (Primula vulgaris), the early Purple Orchis (O. mas- 

 cula), and the Cuckoo Pint (Arum maculatuvi) burst 

 on our eyes in such luxuriant profusion that they 



