72 BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. iMurck. 



" Snow is white and lies in the dyke, 

 And all men let it he ; 

 Pepper is black and has a good smack, 

 And all men do it buy." 



The modern spelling is given. The poet intimates that beauty, like a 

 flower, soon fades. The ancient classics appear to have had an intense 

 admiration, or perhaps veneration, for natural beauty, and the fervour of 

 their devotion to this deity was in the inverse ratio of its permanence. 

 The sarcastic moralist teaches us that beauty, like everything else, is to 

 be valued at its market-price, and 



" The market-price of anything 

 Is just as much as it will bi'ing." 



Causticus. 

 Cheriton Gospel Oak. 

 {From the Winchester Observer.) 

 Many of our Alresford readers must remember that active county ma- 

 gistrate, the late John Duthy, Esq., of Eopley ; and in his delightful 

 ' Sketches of Hampshire,' published after his death, appears the follow- 

 ing : — " In the northern pait of the parish of Cheriton, where its limits 

 abut on those of Ovington, stand the remains of a venerable tree, called 

 the Gospel Oak, which is mentioned as a known and ancient boundaiy in 

 an old manuscript, without date, among the muniments of the bishopric 

 of Winchester at Wolvesey ; and again in a survey taken about the year 

 1560, and is stated to have been so denominated because the Gospel was 

 wont to be said there in the perambulation [treading the bounds] week, 

 between the lordships of Cheriton and Ovington. Among the traditional 

 stories of the rural sages of Cheriton, on the subject of this Oak, it is 

 gravely recounted tliat it is the spot where the Gospel was first preached 

 in this neighbourhood, before any parish or church existed here. It is 

 almost needless to add that this rumour has no better foundation than 

 village lore, or an old wife's tale ; yet it serves to mark the general belief 

 in the antiquity of this venerable vegetable ruin, the remains of which 

 cannot be less than four or five centuries old, and probably much older." 



ACONITUM NaPELLUS. 



In the beginuing of July I had the pleasure of discovering a new loca- 

 lity for this plant, in the northern part of this county (Monmouth), by 

 the side of a small brook, in the parish of Llangattock Lingoed. I do not 

 specify the place more minutely, for fear of its having too many visitors. 



James Bladon. 



Commtmications have been received from 



Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay ; J. S. MiU ; C. A. C. ; M. M. Atwood ; W. M. ; 

 W. L. Notcutt ; W. Dickinson ; Maxwell T. Masters ; Rev. A. Bloxam. 



BOOKS EECEIVED FOR REVIEW. 



Monograph of the Genus Abrothallus ; by W. L. Lindsay, M.D., etc. 



On the Floicering Plants and Ferns of Oxfordshire ; by Maxwell T. Masters. 



