2G0 Zouloyical Society : — change which comes over the * face of the dee}) ' when tlie bold pro-montory of Hartland affords us no longer its friendly shelter on our passage to the * isle of rats,' her remarks are painfully suggestive of the past : " Ah ! how the coast and sea alter as you pass Hartland Point ! No gentle wavelets ripple over the sand, but sturdy Atlantic billows, rolling in from the far west, come bounding over the stony strand, and leap high into the air as they strike against the project-ing masses of rock." (p. 26.) Her picture, too, of Clovelly is manifestly * drawn from the life ;' as is also that of the entrance into it, by the well-known " Hobby-drive," — " a road terraced along the cliff, winding in and out through deep wooded glens and over trickling streams ; whilst, below, the blue sea shines between the branches, and the waves make gentle moan upon a beach you cannot see" (p. 28). Clovelly is indeed a wonderful spot, and " any one," says our authoress, " who would venture down its street must leave his dignity behind him, and get down as best he can, — fortunate if he have not a hard tumble or two by the way." Another writer has aptly described it as " a small fishing-village built on the steep slope of a cliff, and looking almost as if the whole place had been wrecked from some large ship, and had cleverly contrived to scramble on shore, and clamber up the rocks just beyond high-water mark, but had never been able to reach the summit*." In the concluding portion of her volume, Mrs. Chanter pilots us through the * pixied haunts ' of Dartmoor, and leads us into many a wild and unvisited retreat. From the top of Lustleigh Cleve she surveys, amidst craggy Tors, the teeming valleys beneath, — and taking up her harp, in all the warmth of a poetic imagination,, exclaims : '* It is a place in which one longs to linger and drink in all its charms. It is a place from which one cannot turn without a sigh of regret ; a place that comes back in pleasant dreams of happy hours ; a place one seems to have known somewhere, somehow, — long, long ago." (p. ^7.) The last chapter of this little book contains some directions on the cultivation of ferns, and the three or four preceding ones de-scriptions of the species of these plants, referred to in other parts of the work. These descriptions appear to be copied for the most part from Mr. Moore's works, and they are illustrated by some pretty good coloured figures. PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. November 13, 1855.— Dr. Gray, F.R.S., in the Chair. Characters of some apparently New Species of Bucco-NiD.«. By Philip Lutley Sclater, M.A., F.L.S. 1 . Bucco hyperrhynchus. Tamatia hyperrhynchus^ Bp. MS. et Consp. Vol. Zygodact. p. 13. B. supra fulyenti-niger ; fronte lata et superciliis anticis albis : * June : a Book for the Country in Summer-time. By H. T. Stainton (London, 1856), p. C5.
BioStor
