Phillippe de Commines having been sent to Calais, by the Duke of Burgundy, to treat with Vauclerc, reports that Warwick was so popular, that every one wore his badge, no man esteeming himself in the fashion who was not adorned with the ragged staff; nor was any door frequented that had not his cross painted upon it; and that Vauclerc himself wore in his hat a jewel, upon which was a ragged staff, embroidered with gold.

The Earl of Warwick's power, although then great, was exceedingly transient; for in a very few months another revolution occurred, as sudden as the last. Edward returned, with some few forces and friends, from the Continent, landed at Ravenspur, in Yorkshire, and entered the city of York. He proceeded southward from thence, his army greatly increasing on the way, and presented himself before Coventry, where Warwick was strongly posted with his forces, awaiting the expected arrival and junction of the troops under his brother, the Marquis of Montague, and his son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence. Warwick, under those circumstances, did not then choose to engage in battle, and Edward marched on towards London, which Warwick expected would hold out until he could arrive to its relief; and he accordingly commenced his march in that direction. Disastrous tidings, however, soon reached him. He soon received the intelligence that Edward had been joyfully received into London; that Clarence had deserted the Lancastrian party, and had gone over, with all his army, and joined Edward near the town of Warwick; and that Henry, instead of being a King, was a prisoner.

Warwick was now in a situation of great danger; he was too far advanced to retreat, with much chance of success; was a considerable distance from any place of safety; and was in the face of a superior army; and although Clarence offered his mediation between Edward

and Warwick, the latter was too proud and spirited to accept his intervention, but indignantly rejected it, and prepared for battle. Warwick's army was encamped at a place then called Gladmore Heath, now enclosed, on the north-westward side of Barnet, from which it is distant about a mile, and just beyond the small village of Hadley, in the county of Middlesex, but very near the borders of Hertfordshire. Edward had advanced with his army from London to Barnet, and passing through it, encamped and passed the night prior to the battle in the open field, near the forces of Warwick.

On Easter Sunday, the 14th of April, 1471, the battle of Barnet was fought between the rival armies, and terminated in a complete victory obtained by the Yorkists over the Lancastrians; in which the Earl of Warwick, the Marquis of Montague, many knights and gentlemen, and a great number of common soldiers, were slain. Phillippe de Commines informs us that Warwick never used to fight on foot; but his practice was, when he had led his men to the charge, then to take horse, and if victory fell on his side, to fight amongst his soldiers, otherwise to depart in time; but that at this battle, he was induced by his brother, the Marquis of Montague, to alight on foot, and send away his horse.

The bodies of Warwick and the Marquis of Montague were conveyed in a cart to London, and exposed to view in St. Paul's Cathedral Church for three days, in order that no doubt might exist as to their deaths; they were then buried in Bisham Abbey, in Berkshire, which had been founded or endowed by an ancestor, one of the Montagues: the Abbey was destroyed at the dissolution of Monasteries; their tombs were broken, and all knowledge of the exact spots where their mortal remains were interred, is now utterly forgotten.

So terminated the career of the great Earl of Warwick,

one of the most valiant and powerful noblemen that England has ever produced, and one who has been correctly described as the "the proud setter up and puller down of Kings;"" the correctness of which observation is evinced, by his having been mainly instrumental in dethroning Henry VI., and making Edward IV. a King; and again in dethroning Edward and restoring Henry.

66

Warwick (wounded).—For who liv'd King, but I could dig his grave?

And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?

Lo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!
My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,

Even now forsake me; and of all my lands,

Is nothing left me but my body's length."

Shakespeare's Henry VI., Part 3, Act 5, Scene 2 (A Field of Battle near Barnet.)

The following paper was then read:

ON SOME OF THE MINOR NATURAL HISTORY EXCURSIONS MADE DURING THE

LAST MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. BY T. C. ARCHER, Esq., V.P.,

PROFESSOR OF BOTANY, QUEEN'S COLLEGE.

EVERY naturalist is aware of the value of actual work in the field, but it is not always easy to convince the fireside student that more may frequently be gained in a few walks with accomplished masters of natural history, than can be acquired by years of study assisted by books alone. Indeed it is almost impossible to over-estimate the value of "field days" to the really ardent naturalist, especially when these pleasant and healthful studies are shared by agreeable companions.

(1) Shakespeare's Henry VI., Part 3, Act 3, Scene 3. It is remarkable, that in the same Tragedy, in Act 2, Scene 3, Shakespeare conveys the same sentiment, but in different words-" Thou setter up and plucker down of Kings."

Believing that the utility of field operations is not fully appreciated, I am induced to place before you a sketch of three minor natural history expeditions, made during the last meeting of the British Association in Dublin. The first was under the direction of Dr. Allman, Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, a worthy successor to Professor Edward Forbes, both in talent and that bonhommie which made the late Professor as much beloved, as his extraordinary genius caused him to be respected. We met in Sackville Street, at eleven a.m., our object being to occupy the time until two p.m., by exploring the localities in which Dr. Allman had discovered and studied the species of fresh-water polyzoa, which he has so fully described in his masterly moncgraph. Our party consisted of Dr. Allman and his brother, Professor Redfern, the Rev. H. H. Higgins, the Rev. H. Wood, F.G.S., Dr. J. B. Edwards, and myself. We first directed our steps to the Dublin canal. Here most of us were astonished at the green colour of the water, differing altogether from the greenness which results from stagnation. It appeared to be almost filled with green fusiform spiculæ, each freely floating. Upon examination, these proved to be the curious little fresh-water confervæ, Aphanizomenon incurvum and A. flos-aquæ, the Spherozyga spiralis of some authors, and Trichormus spiralis of Allman. For at least half a mile, which we went along the banks of the canal and around the docks and basins, we saw this little plant in countless millions, generally free as before mentioned, but occasionally aggregated into masses, apparently where it had clung to the walls or projecting weeds. These clusters had a bright apple-green colour, and appeared smooth and compact, reminding us of the curious Nostochina, but upon the slightest touch the frustules were disunited, and floated away independently,

We drew water in our specimen bottles from various parts of the canal, all of which contained the confervæ. In about an ounce of the water, otherwise beautifully clear, I counted 150 separate plants. This would give 19,200 specimens of these confervæ to each gallon of the water contained in many miles of this canal.

One of the principal points to which Professor Allman guided our steps was a bridge, under which the Fredericella Sultana of Blumenbach and others, was very abundant in the crevices of the masonry, about eighteen inches below the surface. These crevices were beautifully fringed with the aquatic moss Fontinalis antipyretica (Linn), and patches of the emerald-green Spongillia, amongst which the brown, unattractive moss-like bunches of Fredericella were very abundant. This curious and beautiful animal, now placed in close alliance with the mollusca, consists of a ramifying brown tubular conœcium, of a nature similar to that which contains the polyps in Sertularia and other genera. It consists, however, of two distinct membranes, the inner termed the endocyst, the outer the extocyst. From the orifices terminating the branches of these double tubes the beautiful polypide is protrutled or retracted at pleasure, and when expanded is distinctly perceptible to the naked eye.

The remainder of the morning was consumed in an unsuccessful search for the beautiful Cristatella, which the same locality had previously yielded plentifully to Dr. Allman's researches. Near the bridge from which we commenced our explorations, we saw what, if not interesting in a natural history point of view, certainly offered food for reflection; a large pile of tan or exhausted tanner's bark, protected from the weather by a temporary covering, formed of some of the beautiful semicircular girders of the roof of the Dublin Exhibition Palace-that splendid roof which formerly spread its ample span over