Still sadder is the fate of the devastated coast on the Brighton side of the harbour-mouth, where the low cliffs that overlook the lagoon from Southwick to Fisher's-gate have long been known to botanists as worthy of some attention. Here, on the grassy escarpment, the rare Bithynian vetch used once to grow, as we learn from Mrs. Merrifield's interesting _Sketch of the Natural History of Brighton_ (1860); and here we may still find such plants as the sea-radish, a large coarse crucifer with yellow flowers and queer knotted seed-pods; the blue clary, or wild-sage, running riot in great profusion; the fragrant soft-leaved fennel; the strange star-thistle (_calcitrapa_), so-called from its fancied resemblance to an ancient and diabolical military instrument, the caltrop, an iron ball armed with sharp points, which was thrown on the ground to maim the horses in a cavalry charge; the pale-flowered narrow-leaved flax; and lastly, that rather uncanny shrub of the poisonous nightshade order, with small purple flowers and scarlet berries, which is called the "tea-tree," though the tea which its leaves might furnish would hardly make a palatable brew. Below these cliffs, on an embankment that divides the waters of the lagoon from the seashore, there still flourishes in plenty the fleshy leaved samphire, once sought after for a pickle, and ever famous through the reference in _King Lear_ to "one who gathers samphire, dreadful trade." In this locality there is no dreadful trade, except that of reducing a once pleasant shore to an unsightly slag-heap. Let me now turn from this melancholy spectacle to those Sussex shingles on which the Admiralty and the contractor have not as yet laid a heavy and ruinous hand. On some of the more spacious of these pebbly beaches, as on that which lies between Eastbourne and Pevensey, the traveller may still experience the feeling expressed by Shelley: I love all waste And solitary places, where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be. From Langney Point one looks north-east along a desolate shore, beyond which the ruins of Pevensey Castle are seen in the distance, and the width of the shingly belt between the sea and the high-road is at this point scarcely less than a mile. A scene that is bleak and barren enough in its general aspect; but a search soon reveals the presence of floral treasures, the first of which is a rather rare member of the Pink family, the soapwort, which I had long sought in vain until I met with it growing in abundance close to the outskirts of Eastbourne, where it roots so luxuriantly in the loose shingles as to make one wonder why it is so fastidious elsewhere. Among other noticeable inhabitants of these flats, or of the shallow marshy depressions which they enclose, are hairy crowfoot, catmint, white melilot, stinking groundsel, strawberry-headed trefoil, and candytuft--the last-named a rather unexpected flower in such a place.