1U 
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF STEEP HOLM. 
" Flora of Somerset," who, accompanied by our ex-President, 
Mr. J. W. White, paid a visit to the island in July, 1891, and 
published the results of the day's gatherings in the " Journal of 
Botany " of that year. A long period of neglect appears to have 
followed this visit, probably because the farmer who occupied 
the island did not encourage strangers to land, and because it 
was realized that there were no special plants of interest to be 
found there beyond the two or three rarities already known to the 
general botanist. Certain changes in the occupancy have afforded 
an opportunity in the last two or three years for visits to be paid 
with greater freedom of movement, and therefore several British 
field botanists have spent a day there. 
At the end of May, 19 14, a party of seven Bristol Naturalists 
went to the island to study also the molluscs and the insect life. 
Messrs. A. K. Hudd, C. E. L. Gardner, and Miss Roper confined 
themselves to the plant life, and their joint observations resulted 
in a list of 92 flowering plants. 
Mr. F. G. Pearcey, as the conchologist, collected some valuable 
material that has been added to the Bristol Museum, and Messrs. 
G. C. Griffiths, C. Bartlett, and Miss Nora Ward, studied the 
entomology. 
Full details of their finds will be given by them later in this 
paper. 
BOTANY.— By Ida M. Roper, F.L.S. 
Mr. Murray, in his account, says that probably the entire 
vegetation of the island — flowering plants 'and cryptogams — 
does not much exceed 150 species in the whole year, and as our 
list does not include the grasses and was made at the end of May 
it would seem that our record of 92 species and varieties was a 
good result for the comparatively short time at our disposal. The 
weather for some weeks previously had been very dry so that 
many of the smaller plants were past and over, whilst much of 
the herbage on the summit had been eaten down by a donkey and 
several goats, which had the free run of the island. The party 
was landed on a pebbly beach about 40 yards in length, which 
is devoid of vegetation except for a few plants of Beta maritima, 
whose fleshy root is able to force its way down to a constant 
supply of water. The island is about a mile and a half in 
circumference, and the ascent begins at once by a few steps, and 
a steep winding path fashioned out of the face of the rock, and 
leading upwards to the grassy plateau. At the top are the 
remains of old buildings, and some further distance on is a small 
dwelling house. 
There are no trees on the island, except two or three small 
sycamores near the landing stage, and the shrubs are all stunted 
from the force of the wind. 
There was reason to think that the Pceonia corallina had 
become very scarce compared with what was known of it years 
