Clovelty. 441 



mortal mixture of earth's mould" can diffuse such a con- 

 centrated essence of abominations, vegetable chemistry may- 

 try to tell ; but if any one has smelt the sylvan beauty he 

 will easily comprehend Miss Plues' story of the gentleman 

 who was driven from a favourite walk by an odour which he 

 conjectured came from the decomposing bodies of animals tiiat 

 had died in the crevices of the rocks, but which really emanated 

 from the un-Bimmel like laboratory which the stinkhorn had 

 set to work. 



Another day we brought in from the woods a small club- 

 shaped fungus about an inchand a half high, and of a fine orange- 

 yellow colour. As soon as it was placed under a three-inch 

 object-glass it was seen to scatter a quantity of extremely fine 

 threads about a hundredth of an inch in length. Mr. Berkeley 

 was kind enough to give me the name of this fungus, Cordiceps 

 militaris, and from him I learn that the emitted objects were 

 threads of sporidia escaping from the ascl, or bags, in which 

 they are situated in the Sporidiiferous division of fungi. Under 

 a magnification of 400 linear, the threads were seen to be very 

 delicate tubes, containing patches of a whitish substance, some 

 round, some oval, some square, and looking like a minute chain 

 of irregular cells. The threads of sporidia did not appear to 

 tumble out of the asci, or to be blown out by the air currents 

 of the room. They escaped from all parts of the fungus and in 

 various directions, as if ejected by an infinitesimal force. 



In lanes between Clovelly and Bleckbury the Osmunda 

 grows six feet high, and near Hartland Quay (eastward) is a 

 beautiful patch of splendid Asplenium marinum, provokingly 

 out of reach. The hay-scented fern is found in the Hobby 

 woods, together with many interesting varieties of species 

 less rare. 



The shores of Clovelly are not very good for collecting 

 specimens in marine zoology. The rocks and stones to the 

 left are more splendid in appearance than convenient as 

 dwelling-places for sea creatures. Some pools are prettily 

 fringed with green weeds, common coralline, polysiphonias 

 (good for the microscope), tangle weeds, etc.; but the com- 

 pound polyps and polyzoa do not take to them, and few of the 

 elegant tribe of sea slugs were found by us crawling on their 

 clefts, or under sides. Some magnificent anemones — crassi- 

 cornis and Anther cereus — were found at Clovelly and Hart^ 

 land ; the acorn barnacle was in millions on the rocks, together 

 with swarms of tops and lesser whelks. A purple spotted top 

 (Trochus ziziphinus) began to lay eggs as soon as i t t was placed 

 in a washhand basin. They were discharged in ribbons of 

 jelly, each egg, a round white opaque body, having its own 

 separate envelope of a material transparent as the finest glass. 



