294 MEADFOOT AND THE STARFISH. 



the sloping side of the sea-face, all strewn, and almost 

 covered, with heaps of shattered fragments. These 

 give place to broken but verdure-clad ground, where 

 the pretty white rock-rose (Heliantliemum polifolium) , 

 a somewhat rare plant in England, is growing in 

 abundance, forming large cushions of neat hoary foli- 

 age, studded with hundreds of the delicate snowy 

 blossoms, the crowd of stamens making a pretty centre 

 of bright golden yellow to each. I go down on hands 

 and knees, and labour to secure some roots for the 

 rock-work of my garden. Nothing seems easier than 

 to get them up out of this shaly loose stuff, but really 

 it proves a trial of skill and patience. The surface 

 fragments are soon scraped away ; then you come to 

 larger blocks imbedded in the clay ; the long taproots 

 run in between these masses, which have to be worked 

 out ; but the more one digs, the farther seem to pene- 

 trate these interminable roots, which have scarcely 

 any rootlets till you come to their tips. However, I 

 managed to secure a few fair specimens uninjured, 

 selecting chiefly young plants, as being more likely 

 to survive, and boxed them up in the vasculum. 



While I am thus engaged, a cuckoo calls in start- 

 ling proximity. It is evidently in a bushy hollow just 

 below a knoll on which I am kneeling. I wish to get 

 a peep at the bird; for, familiar as is the cuckoo's 

 voice to our ears, a near glimpse of his person is by 

 no means a common thing. I cautiously crawl over 

 the knoll ; the well-known call comes up again 

 * ' cuckoo ! " singularly distinct. As I gaze, the bird sud- 



