-7S Botanizing at Oalcshott Heath. 



derable excavations whence sand has been dug for the gardens of 

 Claremont. We push on through another incipient pine wood, 

 which must have been long undisturbed, for in the cart ruts 

 there are seedling trees now measuring six feet high, and some 

 of them are full of cones, and have borne fruit for more than four 

 years. It is perhaps five and twenty years at least since those 

 cart ruts were formed, and during the intervening period no 

 wheels have disturbed the silence there. Our way leads us 

 through a region covered with pines of large growth. All 

 around is one uniform spongy carpet of pine strewings, save 

 where it is variegated with clumps of Boletus and other fungi, 

 which are here not plentiful, but choice. Here we meet two 

 young men who are employed in the gardens at Claremont, 

 and they guide us to the " Black Ponds," Avhich we had 

 determined to see, even if we should have to sleep on the heather. 

 After traversing a vast breadth of monotonous wood we saw at 

 last the gleaming of water in the distance, and in due time 

 parted from our guides, and sat down beside a lake of some 

 five and twenty acres in extent, the first of a series, called the 

 " Black Ponds." Most appropriately are these lakes named, 

 and this, the first of three, is perhaps the blackest of all. The 

 water is clear as crystal, and the chief source of supply to 

 Claremont. Yet the lake has the appearance of a vast sheet of 

 burnished steel, on which every shadow falls in jet black 

 outlines, recalling the scene in that poem of Moore's which 

 commences — 



" By that late whose gloomy shore, 

 Skylark never warbles o'er." 



Is it the peaty character of the soil or the dense umbrage of 

 tall pines by which the lake is enclosed, that gives it this 

 peculiar character? Perhaps the two causes combined are 

 sufficient, and the result is peculiarly interesting. We depo- 

 sited our baggage beside a small buildino- where a horse is 

 occasionally employed to work a pump, which forces the water 

 of the lake through pipes of some miles in length to Clare- 

 mont, and then made the circuit of its shores. What a place 

 for botanists ! Here are lilies, sedges, rushes, potamogetons, 

 aliemas, hydrocotyle, aquatic ranunculuses; and the walk that 

 encompa es the lake takes the visitor amongst magnificent spe- 

 cimens of Scotch fir, silver birch, the aider, holly, and willow; 

 and among the hollies is a noble specimen, which admirably 

 illustrates that poein of Southey's, on the accuracy of which 

 re lias been considerable debate, for it produces lobed and 

 spiny Leaves below, and smooth entire leaves above, and in 

 ►me Lds of leaves are to be found on the same 



branch. Many of the aquatic gatherings here were of kinds 

 met with before, but our eyes were soon arrested by large 



