42 



sequently spoiled by dust. A few flowers of the wood-sorrel (Oxalis 

 acetosella) still persisted. The white beam (Pyrus aria) was met 

 with sparingly. We saw several clumps of the meadow cow-wheat 

 (Afelampyrum pratense), plenty of the woodland loosestrife (Lysim- 

 achia nemorum), bluebell (Scilhi nutans), and furze (Ulex europceus). 

 Other plants noted in flower were meadow crowfoot (Ranunculus 

 acris), holly (Ilex aquifolium), hawthorn (Cratcegus oxyacantha), and 

 beaked parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris). To which Mr. Sich adds the 

 thyme-leaved speedwell ( Veronica serpyllifolia). 



Birds. — Mr. F. B. Carr reported finding a nest with five eggs of 

 the willow wren (Phylloscopus trochilus) amongst the bilberry on 

 the Chart. 



THE DISTRICT AS A WHOLE. 

 The Downs and the Darenth River. 



In dealing with the district covered by the five field meetings 

 already mentioned, as a whole, it may be well, in order to properly 

 appreciate the lay of the land, to first look a little further afield. 

 The cliffs on the coast of Kent in the neighbourhood of Dover and 

 Folkestone are the termination of a range of chalk hills that we 

 know as the North Downs. Following them inland, we find that 

 they pass, roughly speaking, through the middle of the county from 

 east to west by way of Wye, Charing. Maidstone, and Otford, and 

 so on into Surrey and far beyond. Similarly the cliffs at Beachy 

 Head on the Sussex coast form the termination of the South Downs, 

 which run on by way of Lewes and Brighton, and away through 

 that county to the west. Both the North and the South Downs 

 are somewhat irregular in formation, having spurs running off from 

 them in many directions, and they vary very much in height, rising 

 in places to an elevation of over 800 feet, as at Tatsfield on the 

 border of the county, and exceeding 600 feet on the ground covered 

 by our Otford meeting, while at others they fall away to so low a 

 level that rivers pass through them, but on the whole they form two 

 fairly continuous ranges of hills running parallel to one another, and 

 between them the Weald is situated but does not extend everywhere 

 exactly to the foot of the Downs, the district under review being a 

 case in point. Here a detatched range of hills having a sandy soil 

 containing large quantities of a limestone " rock " known as "Kentish 

 rag," and attaining in parts an elevation little short of that of the 

 Downs themselves, runs parallel to them for some ten or twelve 

 miles at a distance of about two miles south of them, and, like the 

 Downs, this range has a gradual rise from the north to the summit, 

 which is fairly flat and broad, and falls away by a steep descent to 

 the south. 



In the valley formed by this range of hills and the Downs the 



