The friendly branches of a wild rose hustle my elbow, or, rather, would do so, but that a sturdier bramble bough interposes. On the other side of me there is a charming tangle of hazel and blackberry bushes. There is also a more than commonly bushy hawthorn overspreading the wall at a portion where thick ivy covers it. A spreading wild rose is established in the very middle of the glade, which is graced with quite an unusual quantity of large and old hawthorn trees. A strong west wind soughs and sighs in the trees; blackbirds and thrushes, by their liquid notes, blithe and merry, seem to protest against the melancholy undertone, as does a grand humble bee, in magnificent orange-velvet smallclothes, who contributes a sympathetic bass solo as he drones by. But the object to be chiefly noticed at this moment is the aged ash-tree yonder. It is of medium size and no particular shape, though the ivy covering its bole and lower limbs gives it an air of picturesque importance. Ragged hawthorns and brambles surround it. The importance of the tree lies in the circumstance that it marks the spot which the old writers, and many modern authorities following in their footsteps, have pronounced to be the source of the Thames. The supposition is that in former times a perennial spring of water issued forth here, forming Thames Head. The well, however, out of which the water might once have gushed, and miscellaneously overspread the pasturage on its way to form a brook, has in these days lost potency. For a long time past it has ceased to yield water, and, as a matter of prosaic fact, from one end of the glade to the other there is no sign of water in any shape or form. The inhabitants of the countryside say that in the winter-time the waters, provoked by long rains, still well forth in copious flood; but, even granting this, we may not conclude that a spring so uncertain as this in Trewsbury Mead is the source of the Thames. The obvious reflection is that before the erection of the ugly pump-house which disfigures the locality, and before the neighbouring springs began to be drained for the service of the Canal, the supply of water was permanent and strong, albeit there is ground for supposing that Thames Head was never thoroughly to be relied upon. I have thus pictured for the reader the source which appears to be favoured by topographers and antiquaries; but there are other springs besides. Half a mile lower down there is, near the Roman way, a basin--another Thames Head--which is sometimes filled by a spring, and which is pictured on the next page in the precise condition in which it appeared to our artist during the rains of early spring. Yet another rill issues from a hill-side; and a fourth, lower still, is perhaps the most clearly defined and strongest of the group, and best entitled to the honour claimed on behalf of the dried-up well in the green glade just described. The Thames Head