286 INSECTS AND SHELLS. 



which I had seen also on the road. A few tufts of 

 the stinking iris, so common in South Devon, but 

 scarce almost everywhere else, were growing near the 

 sea, but not in flower ; and the more elegant yellow 

 iris was abundant in a ditch that bounds the Burrows 

 interiorly, with other common hedge-plants. 



The sand of the hills was beaten quite hard on the 

 seaward side by the force of the drift ; but inwardly 

 it was soft and loose : great tracts were covered with 

 a slender rush of a glaucous hue, but as I saw none 

 in flower I do not know the species. The ragwort 

 also covers extensive areas. Towards the interior 

 side I passed through a large tract of the brake-fern, 

 with an under- growth of rest-harrow, and a few plants 

 of the yellow mountain violet in blossom. These I 

 think were pretty nearly all the plants that fell under 

 my observation, except such as were common every- 

 where. Of animal life I did not notice much. Rab- 

 bits indeed were numerous, popping out of their holes 

 at every turn, gazing at the intruder for an instant, 

 and then jumping away with elevated rump and tail. 

 Two insects, an Asilus and a Cicmdela, were taking 

 short impatient flights over the sand ; singularly alike 

 in manners, though of widely difi'erent orders ; the 

 one a two-winged fly, the other a beetle. On the 

 sand and beneath its surface, were thousands of shells 

 of the common garden-snail ; the heat and the dry- 

 ness had, as it were, embalmed them, and they 

 appeared in the finest preservation. One might have 

 been tempted to think, but for the familiar form and 

 pattern of the marking, that it was some foreign 

 species of superior beauty, for the dark colours were 



