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South ; and, lastly, the links of the North Oxford 
Golf Club, about two miles from Carfax ; while 
those who delight in Cricket and Football will 
find in the frequent matches fought out in the 
University Park, and free to all comers, plenty 
of opportunity for enjoyment. 
To the Ornithologist Oxford presents peculiar 
attractions, for, as Mr. Warde Fowler points out, 
the surrounding water meadows and the secluded 
College Gardens render it a paradise for birds, 
and a resident authority 1 has noted in Christ 
Church Meadows, where the Alders are the 
favourite haunt of lesser redpolls, goldfinches and 
(though rarely) siskins, no less than 70 species, 
including the nuthatch, creeper, lesser-spotted 
woodpecker, and sometimes the greater-spotted 
woodpecker. The reed bunting is a typical Oxford 
bird, and kingfishers are numerous, while in flood 
time rare visitants, such as widgeon, shoveller, 
sheldrake and wild geese, may occasionally be 
seen on the borders of Port Meadow. 
Any attempt to give a list of even the rarest 
of the flowering plants to be found round about 
Oxford is quite beyond the limits of this compila- 
1 Rev. E. Peake. 
tion. These, and indeed, ‘ every herb that drinks 
the dew ’ in the district may be found in the 
exhaustive Flora of Oxfordshire and Flora of 
Berkshire, the work of Dr. G. Claridge Druce, 
who, in the latter, refers to the rich harvest to 
be found on the high ground of Boar’s Hill, at 
Cumnor Hurst, and in Bagley Wood; and in the 
former tells us that ‘ Beckley with Stow Wood 
and Headington Wick form perhaps the most in¬ 
teresting portion of botanising country in central 
England, and their scenic attractions are almost 
equally great.’ These places are all within walk¬ 
ing distance of the city. 
In Magdalen College Meadow and by the river¬ 
side 
‘Where Iffley's meads with blossom overflow ,’ 2 
grows the Fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris ), ‘that 
strange remnant just here of a richer extinct flora 
—dry flowers, though with a drop of dubious 
honey in each. Snake’s heads, the rude call them, 
for their shape, scale-marked too, and in colour 
like rusted blood, as if they grew from some for¬ 
gotten battlefield .... yet delicate, beautiful, 
waving proudly.’ 1 
2 H. D. Raunsley. 
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Page Thirty-one 
