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NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
way out of the ground, and when taken up appearing like so many small tennis
balls ; several of these I carefully carried home, one, which was in its greatest
perfection, my draughtsman, for the sake of more conveniently drawing, took with
him to the 'Spaniard,' (a place of entertainment on the spot), but the fetor
arising from it quickly pervaded every part of the house and rendering it intoler-
able we were obliged to get rid of it." Something like the above has been our
experience at more than on one Fungus meeting.—Ed.
Queen Boadicea's Tomb.—This mound, on Parliament Hill, Hampstead,
so long a spot of interest to London antiquaries, has recently been explored by
Mr. C. H, Read, of the British Museum, under the authority and cost of the
London County Council. The "London Standard" of November 7th gave the
following preliminary account of the explorations. We understand that Mr.
Read is of opinion that the mound is probably a British Tumulus of the
Early Bronze period. It is interesting to visitors to Epping Forest, inasmuch
as Ambresbury Banks were also commonly associated with Cowper's "British
Warrior Queen" in local tradition :—"The exploration which has been in pro-
gress during the past eight days at the tumulus in Parliament-hill-fields, known
as 'Boadicea's Tomb,' has now been virtually brought to la close. Except the
musket bullet, the old Indian coin, and a few scraps of broken china, all found
near the surface, nothing has rewarded the labours of the explorers. The second
trench, which was cut at right angles to the original trench, was still further
dug into yesterday, and several borings were made in other parts of the mound,
without, as already stated, any result. Notwithstanding the negative conse-
quences of the investigation, it does not follow that the mound has no historical
significance. That it is artificial is beyond doubt. It is shapely in outline ; it
has the appearance of a perfect barrow, and it is surrounded with a well-defined
ditch, from which the loam of which it is formed has been taken. It could be
intended neither as a place for a signal beacon, nor as a point of observation
in rude times, for it has been constructed on the slope of one of the many un-
dulations of that picturesque amphitheatre which is shut in by the lofty and
wooded heights of Highgate on the east, the high grounds of Hampstead and
its heath on the west, and the ridge of Lord Mansfield's park on the north as a
background. Several of the undulations of this amphitheatre—one of them
Parliament Hill itself—are much loftier than the site of the mound ; so that,
viewed from any of the points named, the tumulus, though upon high ground,
seems to lie on the side of a small eminence in the centre of a great basin,
and is by no means a conspicuous object in the landscape. The very peculiarity
of the spot on which the mound has been erected naturally suggests that it pos-
sesses an unquestionable historic character. That it is the tomb of the famous
British Queen there is nothing whatever to show. Nobody seems to be able to
trace the origin of the legend which connects it with her. The proverbial oldest
inhabitants remember it from their boyhood as Queen Boadicea's Tomb ; but old
biographers of the beginning of the Seventeenth Century, while they retail a
legend which was current in their day to the effect that Stonehenge was erected
as a monument to Boadicea, make no reference to the Hampstead myth. Other
biographers, writing a century later, quote the same legend about Stonehenge,
and keep silence as to Hampstead's claim to her burial place. Many will prob-
ably be slow to abandon the claim, and the mound, for want of any other
appellation, will probably continue to be called by its legendary title of 'Queen
Boadicea's Tomb.'"