236 Botany -Bay Wood. 



shaded with trees, and now we are in- Botany-Bay wood. 

 The path continues of the same pleasant character all 

 through, broad and dry, and not unfit for the thinnest 

 shoes ; in high summer, ferns and tall grasses press for- 

 ward in crowds, and make fences on either hand, while 

 the foxgloves fill every glade with crimson. Just at the 

 entrance to the wood, Marchantia polymorpha borders 

 the path with its beautiful green stars, for at least a 

 hundred yards. There are no particularly " rare" plants 

 to be got in the wood ; but true naturalists can dispense 

 with the extraordinary, and be happy and content with 

 common things, for it is these which keep the sense of 

 beauty alive. If we look only for the rare, we miss the 

 better part; admiration, like charity, should begin at 

 home. 



About a mile and a half of this quiet walking brings us 

 to the extremity of the wood nearest Worsley. Emerging 

 from it into the park-like grounds that lie immediately 

 beneath Worsley Hall, which rises conspicuously upon 

 the right, and moving in the direction of the Hall, 

 first through meadows, and then by a canal-bank, and 

 through a plantation, we at last come to a cream-coloured 

 cottage, on the borders of the main canal Adjacent to 

 this point there is a swing-bridge, crossing which, we are 

 shown the way into the gardens. 



The miscellanea connected with Worsley are all of 

 considerable interest The date of the original founda- 

 tion is assigned to the period of the Conquest, when this 



