altars for human sacrifice, immovable orreries,
and so on. A French shrug of the shoulders
is the best answer. Read good Dr. Borlase
his History of Cornwall; read Mr. Duke's
learned Essay on Stonehenge, and you will be
just as satisfied with them as with by-gone
systems of astronomy, " cycle on epicycle,
orb on orb." You will in the end arrive at
the true conclusion, that these—are stones!

My imagination cannot utterly discard a
dream I once had, that Stonehenge and the
Ludgvan quoit are not remains of human
workmanship. That they were originally
arranged by some mechanical agency, and did
not tumble together by mere chance, can
hardly be doubted by any one who has seen
the things as they now stand. But remember,
my philosophic friend, man is not the only
animal endowed with the bump of
constructiveness. Other creatures build beside
himself; ant-hills have been taken, at first sight,
for the dwellings of negroes; a cockney,
coming suddenly on a beaver village—
supposing one resuscitated—asked his way to the
inn there: many birds' nests show, at least,
as much attention to comfort as an Irish
cabin. Now we know that there have existed
in former ages gigantic beavers, besides
crowds of other monsters, of whose architectural
accomplishments we are in ignorance;
knowing only that they had the power, if
they only had the instinct, to build something
extraordinary. Might not a race of Å’cotheriums
be just as likely as the Druids, equally
extinct, to make to themselves a shelter and
a family residence, of which we here see the
ruins ? What says our friend, the Professor,
to this?

The Professor smiles wickedly, and asks,
''Do you not think it more probable that
Stonehenge was the submarine nest of the
sea-serpent, and that Ludgvan quoit served
him as a pillow for an afternoon nap, when
out upon his rambles? They would, of course,
rise with the rest of the granite, and remain
where we see them now?"

"Hum! " say I; " when I have caught my
Daws and taught them to speak, I will ask
them if their family retains any tradition on
the subject."

We are sure to find our black game at the
Gurnard's Head; so on we roll pleasantly. A
fine, open, down-y country, where one can
breathe; a little stony, perhaps. But what a
luxury it is to get away from the imprisonment
of interminable hedge-rows, turnpikes,
and thriving young plantations, wherein you
must not set foot under pain of action for
trespass! Some of the stones are got a little
out of the way by being heaped together to
serve as fences. Now and then, the troublesome
granite, resolved upon an outbreak,
pops up its head in the middle of a field, like
a Jack-in-the-box. This, to an unaccustomed
eye, gives the picture a sort of ruinous air.
We might be overlooking the crumbling walls
of a vast priory, or city of priories, of the
olden time. Mr. Mechi would find fault with
one agricultural detail. In Cornish fields, it
is common to see here and there, at regular
intervals, large mounds planted thickly with
drumhead-cabbages, or " flat-polls " in the
language of the country. These flat-polls are
great favourites with the farmers and the
cottagers, who use them as green " meat,"
both for man and beast—crude, for cows and
sheep; cooked, as a table vegetable, and as an
ingredient in soup. Now, the cabbage-bearing
mounds are composed of weeds, rubbish, earth,
and manure, all laid up to rot together, and
to be spread over the land for the succeeding
crop, as soon as the cabbages are consumed
out of the way. A better plan for the
propagation of noxious weeds and insects could
not be devised. They are thus carefully
treasured during the inclement season, and
sown broadcast as the fine one approaches;
while the finer the cabbages, the nearer does
the mound itself approach the condition of an
exhausted non-fertilising compost.

If you please, it is now requisite to walk a
little way. The fence opens, and you have to
step across five or six granite bars (the spaces
between them being trenches in the earth),
like a large stone gridiron laid upon the
ground. Whatever you may say, it is not
intended as a trap for sprained ankles on
dark nights, but is a Cornish style, horizontal,
instead of being vertical, as your wooden
ones are. It is effectual in stopping the
passage of animals, though you might not think
so, to look at it.

And this is the Gurnard's Head;—a stern,
square-built mass of grey granite jutting into
the sea;—one of those headlands, whose living
portrait Stanfield would produce for you—
forming, with some more modestly retired cliffs,
a little cove, wherein the water is so purple
and so deep, that if you were to throw a
stone therein, you would believe that it went
on sinking and sinking for half the day. Our
Gurnard's Head is a surviving portion of
nature's first-built fortifications and bulwarks,
shattered and splintered, but still impregnable.
The waves will have to fret and fume a long
while yet before they undermine it, and
cause it to fall in a heap of ruins. An
inaccessible, inhospitable, uninviting piece of
stuff, without a bit of verdure to tempt even
the rabbit or the goat; just the fitting stronghold
for our sable friends to fix on as head
quarters. But here they are not, unless
invisibly, in some chink or cranny where it
would not be easy to bring them to light.
Like the little birds which ply in and out at
the crocodile's mouth, for the friendly
purpose of picking his teeth, our Choughs may
have found some secret entrance to the
Gurnard's gills, and may now be diverting
themselves in his cavernous interior, if he has
one. But, this being the Gurnard's Head,
where is his tail to be found ? According to
the usual proportions of that excellent but
inadequately appreciated fish, it must be