In the first part of its course the /Taw/, which the Exe exceeds in length by only five miles, is as frisky and headstrong as the rest of the moorland streams, but as soon as it has got well within the line of civilisation it sobers down, and thereafter demeans itself sedately enough. The first place of interest which it passes is South Tawton, where is Oxenham, now a farmhouse, but formerly the seat of a family of this name who lived here from the time of Henry III. until early in the present century. Of these Oxenhams it is an ancient tradition that a white-breasted bird is seen when the time has come for one of them to be gathered to his fathers. The last appearance of the portent was in 1873, when Mr. G. N. Oxenham, then the head of the house, lay dying at 17, Earl's Terrace, Kensington. His daughter and a friend, the latter of whom knew nothing of the legend, were sitting in the room underneath the chamber of death when, to quote from Murray's "Handbook," their attention "was suddenly roused by a shouting outside the house, and on looking out they saw a large white bird perched on a thorn tree outside the window, where it remained for several minutes, although some workmen on the opposite side of the road were throwing their hats at it in the vain effort to drive it away." An interesting occurrence, certainly; but if we are to see in it more than a coincidence, what is to be said of the puffin, the only one of its tribe ever recorded to have visited London, which, having found its way so far inland, flew into the rooms of the President of the British Ornithologists' Union? Must we believe that the adventurous bird was moved to call there in order that its feat might be duly recorded in the Proceedings of the Institution? It is below Nymet Rowland that Taw changes its course. Thenceforward it placidly flows amid rich meadows agreeably diversified with woodland. At Eggesford it is overlooked by the Earl of Portsmouth's seat, peeping out from the trees which climb the left bank. At Chulmleigh it gathers up the Little Dart; and beyond South Molton Road Station the Mole, which gives name to North Molton and South Molton, brings in its tribute from the border of Exmoor. Having laved the foot of Coddon Hill, from whose rounded top one may have far views of the valley in both directions, the Taw flows by the cosy little village of Bishop's Tawton on the right; along the other bank stretches Tawstock Park, the demesne of the Bourchier-Wreys, set about with fine old oaks. Then with a sudden bend it comes within sight of Barnstaple Bridge, and beyond the South Walk, on the right bank, bordering a pretty little park, appear the graceful tower of Holy Trinity Church--an unusually effective piece of modern Perpendicular work--and the ugly warped spire of the mother church.