THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



87 



prawning, most of the day. We did not, however, see or take anything of 

 especial interest. 



May 20. — On this day we left Westward Ho, and going by rail as far as 

 Barnstaple., drove on from, there to Lynton, a distance of about 1 7 miles. The 

 road took us at first through lovely wooded valleys, then up and down hills, 

 steep even for Devonshire, and finally for the last mile or two over the out- 

 skirts of Exmoor. The little town of Lynton consists, as so many towns 

 along the English and Welsh coasts do, of a recent growth of hotels and 

 lodging-houses, grafted upon a picturesque village, apparently many hundreds 

 ©f years old. The original village, which seems here to have been very small, 

 nestled in a hollow lying a little way back from the top of a very high cliff. 

 Along the very edge of this cliff some of the modern houses have been built, 

 and the rest are placed on the side of the steep hill, which rises on the inland 

 side of the old village. At the foot of the cliff, and beside the mouth of the 

 little Lyn, lies the village of Lynmouth. Soon after our arrival at Lynton, 

 we walked as far as the " Valley of Bocks," the following description of 

 which, from " Lorna Doone," though probably familiar to most readers of 

 the Y.N., seems worthy to be quoted at length : — " This valley, or ' goyal/ 

 as we term it, being small for a valley, lies to the west of Lynton, about a 

 mile from the town perhaps, and away towards Ley Manor. Our homefolk 

 always call it the ' Danes/ or the f Denes ' ; which is no more they tell me, 

 than a hollow place, even as the word ' den 'is It is a green, rough- 

 sided hollow, bending at the middle, touched with stone at either crest, and 

 dotted here and there with slabs in and out the brambles. On the right 

 hand is an upward crag, called by some the ' Castle/ easy enough to scale, 

 and giving a great view of the channel. Facing this from the inland side 

 and the elbow of the valley, a queer old pile of rock arises, bold behind one 

 another, and quite enough to affright a man, if it only were ten times larger. 

 This is called the ' Devil's Cheese-ring/ or the ' Devil's Cheese-knife/ which 

 mean the same thing, as our fathers were used to eat their cheese from a 

 scoop." We saw here a number of Stonechats and a pair of Ravens, which 

 latter birds probably had a nest somewhere in the " Castle Rock." Towards 

 evening, on the way back, we heard several Corn Crakes in some fields just 

 outside the town. 



May 21. We walked some distance up the valley of the East Lyn. This 

 rocky stream, which runs down from the famous " Doone Valley," flows in 

 a deep gorge, with very high hills rising on each side. In places, these hills, 

 cliffs they might almost be called, are thickly wooded, whilst in others they 

 are covered only with scattered rocks and patches of bright yellow gorse, and 

 look very wild and rugged. Numbers of Dippers and Yellow Wagtails were 



