TATE : A SURREY TRIP. 



119 



ground, and the wood pigeons keep cooing in the adjoining woods. Here the 

 peasant can turn out his cattle and ohtain fuel for nothing, and it is on these 

 " common" lands, for the most part wild heathy moorlands, that one sees 

 IsTature's beauties in the greatest perfection* The spade used for paring the 

 heath for fuel has a flat, anchor-shaped ace, and is pushed forward by the 

 chest. Making our way by the side of a plantation of Scotch firs, we arrive 

 at one of the old semaphore telegraphs between London and Portsmouth. 

 This is now used as a cottage, and a capital one it makes. From the top 

 the view is very fine embracing Epsom Downs, the Hog's back, Windsor 

 Castle, the hills about High Wycombe, Harrow Hill and the smoke of 

 London. There is near an acre of garden and orchard attached, which is 

 very well kept by a labourer named Smith, who lives here ; the appearance 

 of the cottage and garden, with its fowls and beehives, surrounded on two 

 sides by fir plantations and on the other two by heath, is quite enchanting. 

 Here Mrs. Smith, as she has often done before, gave us a hospitable breakfast, 

 which after our early walk we eat with great relish, and then set out in 

 search of reptiles, which were the chief objects of our search : but we did 

 not find so many as in the spring ; we found no vipers ; they are certainly 

 not so numerous as snakes, when I do find them, it is usually where furze has 

 been cut, and it is hard to tell them from the furze stalks lying about ; they 

 . evidently choose these places to sun themselves in because of the difiiculty of 

 being distinguished in them. We wanted much to catch some l^atterjack 

 toads, but the drought kept them all in their holes except a few, quite young 

 ones ; I may here correct a mistake I made in the Naturalist of April 15th : 

 speaking of the common toad and natterjack, I there said the " natterjack is 

 'much the more diurnal of the two." I have since found that this is not the 

 case, and that their setting off running when surprised by day is because they 

 are then dazzled and confused ; in the night they squat flat on the ground to 

 escape observation ; after luncheon at a roadside tavern, on the Portsmouth 

 road, which runs across the heath, we had a bath in the Wey river, not far 

 off. Impatiens fulva, and Epilohimn angustifolium'^ both grow on the banks, 

 and otters are occasionally found in this part of the river. We returned to 

 the heath across a corner of Kepley Green, of sixty-eight acres, the largest 

 green in England with Dunsborough House, the picturesque seat of Major 

 Enslow facing it ; thence to Ockham Mill, over the foot bridge in the lane, 



* I lately noticed this plant in extraordinary abundance on both sides of the road, 

 cafled Green Lanes, north of Wood Green, Middlesex, and at Cook's Hole, north of 

 Enfield, less abundantly. 



