liam Borrer, the well-known botanist, had told Mr. Mitten was to be found there; and after a long search in every rockhole that seemed a likely place, he, at last, found the treasure, as he almost always does when he goes in search of any rarity. While stopping at a cottage during a shower, and noticing some large birds of prey screaming on a mountain near, he asked the woman of the house what birds they were. To which she replied, "Harpies," which made us wonder what remote part of the world we had got to. We afterwards went to Dolgelly and Cader Idris, where, in a small lake, we found the uncommon Lobelia Dortmanna.

In 1875 we went again to Snowdon, and afterwards to the curious ravine called Twill-dû, or the "Devil's Kitchen," near which I found an umbrella, and Mrs. Mitten, who accompanied us, found somebody's lunch, consisting of a baked trout and grapes; while Mr. Mitten revelled as usual in the rare mosses, and later at the Swallow Falls, on the way to Bettws-y-Coed, he found a moss quite new to him.

Our next excursion was to South Wales, when my wife and Mrs. Mitten accompanied us, as I wished to show them the beautiful scenery of my favourite Vale of Neath. We stayed a few days at a cottage at Pont-nedd Fychan and visited the beautiful waterfalls, the rocking-stone, the subterranean river, and the fine Dinas rock. While here one day we passed a labourer at work on the roadside, and Mrs. Mitten, thinking to gratify the patriotism of a Welshman, remarked on the beauty of the scenery and asked him if he did not think it a privilege to live in such a fine country? Rather to our amusement, he told us that he did not think much of the country, it was all hills and stones, and there was no good land, and he much preferred his own country, which was Lincolnshire!

Another year I and Mr. Mitten went to Glen Clova in the Highlands in search of the many rare plants for which it is celebrated. But we had little success because we had no guide to the exact localities of the rarities. But we much enjoyed the excursion and the wild scenery, though we had some difficulty in getting the keepers to allow us to enter the glen. Being

at the inn on Sunday a number of farmers and their wives. came in after church to meet their friends and drink whisky, and on listening to their very voluble talk I could not understand a word that they were saying. I concluded, therefore, that they were speaking Gaelic, and was much pleased to have heard it. But the landlord's daughter told me afterwards that no one spoke Gaelic there, and that all the people I had heard were speaking English! I could not have believed that pronunciation and accent could have produced such complete unintelligibility. On passing through Edinburgh we called on the late Professor Balfour at the Botanical Gardens, and he much regretted that he had not accompanied us, as he could have shown us all the rarities of that botanical treasurehouse.

In the spring of 1877 I accompanied Mr. Mitten to Spa in Belgium, where he was taking his youngest daughter to a school to acquire French conversation. We stayed a few days there botanizing on the moors and hills around, and were interested in noticing some peculiarities of the vegetation as compared with our own. Nowhere did we see a single primrose, but its place was taken by the true oxlip (Primula elatior), so local with us. Our rare little fern, Asplenium septentrionale, was common by the road-sides. Our Swiss tour has been noticed in chapter xxxiii. Even during Mr. Mitten's occasional visits to us in Dorsetshire, he has found several plants new to the district or to the county. The most notable of these were the crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), never before noticed in Dorsetshire, a quite large bush of which was found on Studland Heath, a well-searched botanical locality. Even more interesting was his discovery of the rare aquatic grass (Leersia oryzoides), which he thought should grow in the ditches near Wareham, and knowing its flowering season he went there and found it, though the very ditch had often been searched by other botanists!

MY EXPERIENCES AS AN EXAMINER.

It was, I think, in 1870, that I heard from Bates of the examinations in Physical Geography under the Science and

Art Department, for which he was one of the Assistant Examiners, and he advised me to apply to Professor Ansted, the examiner in-chief, if I wished to obtain the post of an assistant. I did so; and began the work in 1871, and continued yearly till 1877. In 1871 I also had the examinership in Physical Geography and Geology for the Indian Civil Engineering College, and in 1870 and 1871 for the Royal Geographical Society.

The work under Professor. Ansted was hard while it lasted, but was interesting, and often quite amusing, and it was very well paid. The assistant examiners had each over a thousand papers to examine. The work occupied about three weeks more or less, and the remuneration amounted to from £50 to £60, or occasionally even more. In 1878 Professor Judd and Sir Norman Lockyer were appointed joint examiners, the syllabus being altered to include geology and physical astronomy, while the subject of examination was now changed from Physical Geography to Physiography, and I continued to be an assistant examiner till 1897, with the exception of one year during my American tour.

During the earlier period a considerable number of wellknown scientific men, mostly geologists or biologists, were among the assistant examiners, such as H. W. Bates, William Carruthers, the botanist, J. F. Collingwood, Major CooperKing, Professor J. Morris, Professor T. Rupert Jones, Dr. Henry Woodward of the Natural History Museum, Professor H. G. Seeley, and a few others less well known to me. There were three meetings in London to compare results and secure an equal rate of marking, and these afforded an opportunity for a little conversation between persons who rarely met elsewhere, and we also for some years had an annual dinner, which was latterly discontinued when a considerable proportion of the examiners lived in the country.

Although the drudgery and strain of reading through a thousand papers, with replies to the same set of questions, exhibiting every possible degree of ignorance of the subject and often extremely diffuse, was very great, yet a little relief was given by the highly amusing character of some of the