A Visit to Llandudno. 9 



Continuing the circumbendibus brings the pedestrian with his 

 back to the sea and his face towards the mouldering towers of 

 Conway Castle, once more to Llandudno, after a walk of more 

 than five miles, and very near the spot at which his peregrina- 

 tions commenced. 



This is one way of enjoying the Llandudno mountain. 

 Another is to climb up a steep road, and arrive at a miniature 

 plateau some 600 or 700 feet above the sea level. In this 

 journey, one or two copper mines, apparently not over pro- 

 ductive, are passed; and at nearly the highest spot is a low 

 building, maintained by the Liverpool Corporation as a look-out 

 house, from whence ships destined for their city can be first 

 descried, and the news telegraphed to the busy merchants on 

 ■'Change. Three telescopes, let into copper panes of the bow- 

 window by a ball and socket joint, enable the observer to see in 

 any direction without exposure to the weather ; the telegraph 

 machinery is under his thumb, scores of posts bear its wires 

 down the hill, and then a few vibrations of the obliging 

 needle tell the news on which the profit or loss of the shippers 

 may depend. This was the state of things last September, but 

 a few hundred feet lower, and less influenced by sea-fog, a 

 lighthouse was rising among the rocks, and to that locality the 

 look-out and telegraph business was about to be transferred. 



At the time of my visit one part of the little plateau was 

 like a formal garden of nature's own contriving, but preserving 

 with its regularity that wildness which exerts a lasting charm. 

 Hundreds of small, round, and flattened furze bushes — floral 

 puddings, as they might be called — blazed with yellow 

 bloom, and in the centre of each mass gleamed the rich purple 

 of the heather-bell. In less fertile spots the hard whitened 

 rock lay in flat strips of varying breadth, and in the clefts 

 flourished the dark, stiff foliage of the rue-leaved spleen- 

 wort, sometimes accompanied by flowering plants. Occa- 

 sionally a little hollow made a water pool, with leathery green 

 leaves growing in it, and forming an abode for numbers of the 

 common rotifer, which seemed as happy as at lower levels and 

 in larger ponds. 



A marine zoologist living at Llandudno can do a good deal, 

 as the magnificent aquarium formed by Mr. Drabble, and. 

 described in a former number, will amply prove, and as may 

 be seen from the subjoined list which he has enabled me to 

 give :* — 



It is not, however, a very good place for the casual visitor, 



Zoophytes. 



* Caryne pusilla. 

 ,, sessilis. 

 Tubularia indivisa. 



Tabularia larynx. 

 Halecium halecinum. 

 Sertularia polyzonias. 



