122 BRITISH BIRDS. 



point of view (see 'Nature,* vol. ii. p. 337) in 1870. — Wisbech, June 5. 

 Saml. H. Miller." 



My old comrade, John Wolley, the naturalist, assured me that in his 

 rambles in the Huntingdonshire Fens he has seen the grass growing under the 

 table. Now there is a scarcity of water. 



Many fine bones might have been discovered, one would think, in the 

 cuttings made in 1851 : perhaps British Beaver, which, according to W. Boyd 

 Dawkins's 'Cave-hunting' (p. 78), was only lost circa a.d. 1100-1200. 



There does not appear to have been a floating island to this mere, though 

 it has claims to a ghost. But the beautiful legend of one in Cheshire is 

 prettily told in a Cambridge Prize Poem, called ' The Island on the Mere : a 

 Cheshire Tale.' The hero of it is thus described : — 



" It was the gallant Davenport 



Who, when the might of France 

 Swept o^er the plain of Agincourt, 



With hauberk and with lance, 

 By Henry^s side, received the tide 



Of men upon his shield, 

 And won the spurs of knighthood on 



That glorious battle-field." 



The heroine follows, of course. 



" On the pleasant plain of Siddington, 

 Beside the lonely Mere, 

 There dwelt a maid of noble birth. 

 The fairest daughter of the earth. 

 Sweet Isabel de Vere." 



When valour and beauty meet, but one result ensues — 



" So through the pleasant summer days 

 They wandered by the Mere, 

 Sir Reginald de Davenport 

 And Isabel de Vere," — 



