30 1 8 Notices of New Books. 



admire the magnificent panoramic view that here suddenly bursts upon 

 the sight. The dark, hanging woods of Lavington clothed the steep 

 hills on one side, while on the other their natural forms were varied 

 by smaller clumps of beech and juniper. Below me lay the long and 

 picturesque valley of the Rother, extending from the borders of 

 Hampshire as far as the eye could reach, and varied with wild, 

 heathery commons, evergreen woods, brown copses, and cultivated 

 fields. Immediately opposite was the elevated range of the lower, 

 green sandstone formation, which forms the southern boundary of the 

 weald of West Sussex ; beyond which, again, in the distance, might 

 be seen the blue outline of the Surrey downs, as they stretched far 

 away into the eastern horizon. I had not gazed long upon the mag- 

 nificent scene, before a deep, hollow booming, or protracted concus- 

 sion (for it was rather felt than heard), shook the earth for some 

 seconds. At the same moment a pheasant, in an adjoining copse, an- 

 nounced his consciousness of the shock by a sudden crowing, which 

 had hardly ceased, before a second explosion, succeeded after another 

 interval, by a third, the loudest of all, induced every cock pheasant 

 in the woods of Lavington, to sound his note of alarm. As to myself, 

 I confess I was puzzled how to account for the phenomenon. It was 

 quite different from the rumble produced even by the loudest artillery, 

 and the clear cloudless sky forbade the supposition of its being caused 

 by even distant thunder. On my way home, I passed several persons 

 who had heard it, and many of whom had noticed its effects on the 

 pheasants, especially one party of labourers who were employed in 

 repairing a fence near a long hanger (one of the best preserves in the 

 county) ; they told me that a loud and long-continued crowing pro- 

 ceeded from all parts of the wood for many minutes after the last ex- 

 plosion. They, too, were unable to conjecture the cause of the 

 sound, nor was the mystery unravelled until the following day ; when 

 intelligence arrived of the awful explosion and loss of life, at Messrs. 

 Curtis and Harvey's powder-mills, at Hounslow, nearly fifty miles in 

 a direct line from the spot where T heard it." — Page 187. 



Capercaillie in Scotland. " Through the kindness of a relative of 

 Lord Breadalbane, I am enabled to add a few particulars connected 

 with the present state and condition of the capercaillie at Taymouth 

 (July, 1850), furnished by the intelligent head keeper, Mr. Guthrie, to 

 whose judicious management their establishment and preservation are 

 in a great measure to be attributed. Ample details of the most ap- 

 proved method of keeping the birds in a state of confinement and of 

 rearing the chicks, nearly similar to that pursued by Mr. Guthrie, are 



