AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 203 



poor prisoners often sing for sorrow of heart, and we miss 

 the exulting, gleeful strains of the free "bird of the 

 wilderness." 



The sands on the beach at Bantham are the firmest for 

 walking on of any we know in the neighbourhood, and 

 a great variety of shells (some of them rare ones) may 

 be collected here. The rocks are capital for a scramble, and 

 the deep rock pools, fringed with beautiful sea-weeds and 

 corallines, and tenanted by prawns, periwinkles, hermit crabs, 

 sea anemonies, and many another creature, most tempting 

 to the collector for a marine aquarium, may occupy the 

 attention very pleasantly on a long summer's day. In the 

 village of Bantham there is what may be termed an out- 

 station belonging to the coastguard, in connection with 

 the larger station at Challaborough. Avon-mouth, or as it 

 is generally called, Onnamouth, consists of only a very few 

 houses, higher up the creek than Bantham. 



The Avon divides the parish of Thurlestone from that of 



Bigbury. 



"Where Avon's waters with the sea are mix'd, 

 Saint Michael firmly on a rock is fix'cl." 



St. Michael's rock, now called Burrow, or Burr Island, 

 belongs to Bigbury parish. The sands that connect it with 

 the mainland are passable at half tide : in these sands may 

 sometimes be found beautiful microscopic shells, which can 

 be scooped up by handsful in some states of the Avind and 

 tide. A very elegant shell, supposed to be a nautilus, was 

 found here by the late C. Prideaux, Esq., and given to 

 Colonel Montagu. He describes it as "minute, with sides 

 perfectly equal, and very much resembling the cornu- 

 ammonis, transparent, and strongly ribbed." Of this 

 shell he found three specimens. 



