296 
A SUMMER CAMPAIGN. 
The Botanists laid down tlieir plans for each day, 
And carried them out in a business-like way. 
From Bawsey and Roydon and Dersingham fen 
To Heacliam, Holme, Ringstead and Huns’ton again, 
They ransacked the land and they searched by the sea, 
And brought hack their vasculums filled with debris; 
Rhynchospora alba and Myrica gale, 
And Triticum repens , the blue littorale, 
With Psamma , Cakile, and Glaucium and Phleum, 
So mixed and so many the eyes that would see ’em 
Had need to be sharp with the practice of years; 
But a Botanist’s eyes are in league with his ears, 
He knows by the rustle, the crunch, and the crack, 
One-half of the species that lie in his track. 
Lactuca virosa they found on the sand, 
And a rare little Bladderwort further inland; 
There were regions where Sphagnum and Drosera spread 
Like a rich Turkey carpet in yellow and red. 
There were fens full of Cranberry, Sea-rush, and Reeds, 
Where the snipe makes his home and the bittern still breeds, 
Where the blackcock was flushed, and the sandpiper ran, 
And the stealthy brown adder makes war upon man, 
And the lizard slid nimbly through heather and fern, 
Or lay like a stick by the slow-gliding burn ; 
Where Helix virgata half covered the grass, 
And the pale rayless Aster the muddy morass, 
Where Osmunda sat throned in a leaf-sheltered nook, 
And the slender (Enanthe peered up from the brook. 
Salicornia, Narthecium, Pinguicula , most 
Of the life that is anywhere seen on the coast 
Or the heaths or the bogs of Old England was there, 
And the Botanists found it, and touched it with care. 
Not theirs the rude culture that grabs at all cost, 
E’en the last fading relics of forms nearly lost. 
True lovers of Nature, they would not destroy 
The wild beauties she nursed with such pride and such joy. 
So the hours and the days sped away on swift wings, 
And the end came at last, as to all pleasant things, 
And the Botanists parted, each went on his way; 
If such meeting were ever again, who could say ? 
The chances of life were against it they knew, 
But their hearts were at one and their friendship was true. 
And in life or in death, they all swore by St. Dunstan, 
They’d remember those days round the red cliffs of Huns’ton. 
F. T. MOTT. 
August 23rd, 1884. 
The names of the boys: E. F. Cooper, F.L.S.; C. W. Cooper, 
M.B.; J. E. M. Finch, M.D.; F. T. Mott, F.R.G.S. 
