WATERMOUTH. 107 



and spotted with glossy pileworts, those ubiquitous 

 flowers, mingled with frequent spikes of the graceful 

 wild hyacinths, and now and then one of the more 

 beautiful purple orchis. The pilewort, or celandine, as 

 some call it, is one of my favourites ; for I must cer- 

 tainly beg to be admitted among the '^ three or four" 

 whom Wordsworth covets to praise his little flower of 

 the '' glittering countenance." Blackbirds were pour- 

 ing forth their rich mellow notes from some of the 

 trees : and from the summit of a furze-crowned hill 

 opposite came the welcome call of the Cuckoo, the 

 more welcome because it was the first time I had 

 heard it for the season ; and Cuckoos' notes had been 

 of late years somewhat of a rarity to me. 



Below the house, I crossed a small bridge over the 

 brook, and climbed the steep face of the down, — where 

 wheatears were flitting to and fro, and goldfinches 

 were rifling the seed-heads of the dandelions, and 

 humble-bees were probing the dead-nettles, — to the 

 edge. This is margined with furze, a cover for nu- 

 merous rabbits, whose infant progeny ran out and in 

 before me in surprise and affright at the intrusion. 

 Here I saw before me the sea-washed rocks again, 

 and though the little cove at my feet was neither 

 Watermouth nor Smallmouth, I resolved to try it, as 

 I presumed that a zoophyte common to those locali- 

 ties might be found at an intermediate station. 



On scrambling down to the water's edge, an ope- 

 ration much more difficult and dangerous than on the 

 South Devon Coast, owing to the rock here universally 

 being grauwacke, a grey, friable slate, which stands 

 up in sharp, almost perpendicular, ridges, — the first 



