7 o Alexander Goodman More. [i855 



specimens ; but I think these last belong to the Western Movement,* 

 which I believe takes place from the centre of the European continent 

 each year, whether because the birds understand the secret of a mari- 

 time climate (and coast insects ?), or to avoid crossing the Alps. I 

 should like very much to hear what you know on this point, and whether 

 the small migrant warblers are ever seen crossing the Alps. 



What shocking neglect is shown in the loss of Ross's Gull ! But 

 how often does it not happen that the most valuable collections are per- 

 fectly lost or buried, when presented to some half-ignorant half-lazy 

 public body. Witness the splendid collection of Swainson's birds, now 

 lying boxed up, perhaps moth-eaten, in the Cambridge Geological 

 Museum. 



The weather is still cold here : trees scarcely out, and, as you 

 remark, the sheep have been badly off till quite lately, when the grass 

 at last began to grow. Pray excuse this incoherent scrawl, and believe 

 me your sincere friend, 



A. G. MORE. 



In June a move was made to Tunbridge Wells, and 

 here he passed the summer very happily, between sugaring, 

 fern-hunting, general botanizing, shell-collecting, and 

 correspondence the last chiefly with his friend H. Evans. 

 " Sit down forthwith," begins one of Mr. Evans' letters, 

 " and write me a full programme of the sports and amuse- 

 ments to be had in Galway. I mean to be at Outrehead 

 (can't spell it) in about three days from this in the pur- 

 suit principally of fishing. Sea-trout, if abundant, will 

 appease me without salmon, the season for which is, I 

 suppose, about over your lucubration to be addressed to 

 me at the Outrahead Post Office." Across which is written, 

 " Try the seals A. G. M." And " try the seals" Mr. Evans 

 did, with results which delighted his correspondent per- 

 haps even more than himself. But of that more hereafter. 



The chief interest at Tunbridge Wells was its botany, 

 to which, for a district so much visited, remarkably little 

 attention had been paid ; and a special attraction to one 

 fresh from the Isle of Wight was the presence, within 

 easy reach, of the celebrated " beech-hangers," charac- 

 teristic of the Chalk Downs of the English mainland, but 

 absent from those across the Solent. The following memo- 



* A fact confirmed, in this (amongst others) particular instance of the Hoopoe, 

 in the British Association's " Report on the Migration of Birds," issued in 

 1896. 



