44, THE NATURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH GRASSES. 
separated from each other in this genus is sufficient to dis- 
tinguish it from all others. 
Of our two British species only the first needs attention 
here, which we shall accord it, not so much because of the 
character of “a valuable grass” which Hooker gives it, 
perhaps following Sinclair, but in order to give our own 
independent observations upon a grass which is so abund- 
ant, and which, as we think, has been overmuch cultivated. 
Probably much of the error which we conceive attaches 
to this species has arisen from the company in which it is 
usually found in its favourite upland localities, and hence 
such grasses as Festuca ovina, sheep’s fescue, F. duriuscula, 
hard fescue, Lolium perenne, perennial rye-grass, and Poa 
pratensis common meadow-grass, which in such places yield 
an unusually sweet herbage, have been robbed of much of 
that character which has been erroneously attributed to 
Cynosurus. 
Sinclair says, “In some parts of Woburn Park this grass 
constitutes the principal part of the herbage on which the 
deer and Southdown sheep chiefly browse, while another 
part of the park, which consists chiefly of the Agrostis vul- 
garis fascicularis, Agrostis vulgaris tennifolia, Festuca ovina, 
Festuca duriuscula, &c., is seldom touched by them; but 
the Welsh breed of sheep almost constantly browse on 
these, and almost entirely neglect the Cynosurus cristatus, 
Lolium perenne, and Poa trivialis.” 
Now, in opposition to this, we beg to offer our observa- 
tions, of some eight years, upon this grass, as it ocrurs in 
the park of Earl Bathurst, at Cirencester. 
This park, which is very extensive, rests on the stonebrash 
of the great oolite, with some of the higher ridges just 
capped with forest marble clay; all parts of this, and espe- 
cially the portion called the Deer Park, is full of the Oyno- 
surus cristatus, which grows equally well on the brash and 
the clay, and the thickness of the grass may be estimated 
from the fact that scarcely six inches of space occurs with- 
out its occupants of one or more of the diy sapless culms of 
