ON MUSBURY CASTLE. 63 



the neighbourhood for many miles ; and it is 

 to get a few sprigs of this rare flower that I 

 have come up here to-day, as is my yearly 

 wont. I have just pulled it up, root and all, 

 out of a chink in the rubble this moment ; 

 and I shall take it home in my little tin case 

 by-and-by to examine it at my leisure here- 

 after, and make quite sure about some odd 

 small points in its mode of flowering whose 

 meaning and purpose I have not yet been 

 able thoroughly to understand. 



Meanwhile, what a curious fact it is, this 

 regular recurrence of the same plants and 

 animals in the same situations from season to 

 season ! When once you have learned a 

 little district thoroughly, it is wonderful how 

 constant the geographical distribution of its 

 fauna and flora always remains. In one 

 marshy spot hereabout, and one alone, I 

 find, summer after summer, the sundew and 

 the bog asphodel. In one lane, from time 

 immemorial, the green hellebore has flowered, 

 and nowhere else. On the cliffs to eastward, 



