had both tight and wide sleeves, and were branched or opened at the front of the skirt to expose the handsome petticoat beneath. The farthingale distended the dresses of our female ancestry from just below the bodice or stomacher, in a manner that few, we opine, of the fair sex would care to see revived at the present day. The ruff was of cambric or lawn, and when first introduced, moderate in its proportions, but like many other fashions of that epoch, became enlarged into an absurdity as years passed on. The hair of the ladies was curled, crisped, and arranged with most elaborate care; indeed, so curious and changeable were the coiffures that it would be tedious to our readers to offer more than this general description of them. Capes falling but a short way beyond the shoulders, and faced with fringe or velvet, were also worn. The costume of the gentlewomen during the seventeenth century, if the sombre garbs of the Roundhead families be excepted, consisted of an upper gown, which comprised a bodice and short skirt, the former being open over a laced stomacher, and the latter divided anteriorly, and its sides drawn back and looped up behind; a petticoat or under-dress, of expensive material, reaching to the ground; a yellow starched neckerchief, overspreading the shoulders and terminating on the bosom in two pointed ends; and a high crowned hat, beneath which long ringlets escaped and flowed down the back. The peasant girls or female farm servants had plain dresses, falling to the ankles, and usually tight sleeves and aprons. The bodices of some were open to the waist, but the stomachers, although laced, were of a very inferior kind, and the starched neckerchiefs were wanting. The gentlemen of the Fylde were influenced in their choice of garments according as their sympathies were with the King or Parliament, but there can be little question that in a locality so staunchly loyal as our own, the picturesque garb of the Cavaliers would predominate over the affectedly modest and plain attire of the partizans of Cromwell. The existence on the soil of such men as Sir Thomas Tyldesley, Thomas Singleton of Staining Hall, Thomas Hesketh of Mains Hall, who laid down their lives in the service of the crown, and numbers of others, who drew the sword in the cause of the throneless monarch, are fair evidence that the above conjecture is not hazarded without good reason. A doublet of silk, satin, or velvet, with large wide sleeves slashed

up the front; a collar covered by a band of rich point lace, with Vandyke edging; a short cloak, thrown on one shoulder; short trousers, fringed and reaching to the wide tops of the high boots; a broad-leaved Flemish beaver hat, with a plume of feathers and band; and a sword belt and rapier, constituted the full costume of a Cavalier. Instead of the velvet doublet, a buff coat, richly laced, and encircled by a broad silk or satin scarf, fastened in a bow, was substituted when the inhabitants were under the excitement produced by actual war, in which so many took part. The hair, it should be mentioned, was worn long by the Cavaliers, and closely cropped by the Roundheads, whose dress offers no special features to our notice.

In the earlier part of last century the occupiers of Layton, Lytham, Fox, Burn, Mains, Rawcliffe, Rossall, Larbrick, etc., Halls, and others of equal social standing, who formed the gentry of the Fylde, and who consequently must be taken as our mirror of fashion, were clothed in straight square-cut waistcoats, extending to the knees, and of very gorgeous patterns; velvet breeches fastened below the knees; long silk stockings; buckled shoes, with high red heels; periwigs of monstrous size; hats, cocked on three sides; long lace neckerchiefs; and lastly, but far from the least important, a coat of rich material, having long stiff skirts and wide cuffs, turned back and adorned with gold or silver lace. The ladies had laced stomachers beneath a bodice with straight sleeves, ending at the elbow in moderately wide cuffs. The skirt of the dress was divided in front and looped up behind, disclosing a petticoat equalling or surpassing the richness of the upper garment, and trimmed with flounces and furbelows. The boots resembled those just described, but were more delicate in workmanship. The head-dress was composed of a species of cap, the lace material of which rose in three or four tiers, placed one above another, almost to a point, whilst the hair was brushed up and arranged in stiff curls, somewhat resembling a pyramid. This coiffure had only a brief reign, and was superseded by one less exalted, and of more elegant appearance. Hoops were introduced about 1720, and thirty years later silk aprons and gipsy straw hats, or small bonnets, were worn. In 1765 periwigs were discarded, and the natural hair was allowed to grow, being profusely sprinkled with powder, both by males and females. The country people

were habited in long, double-breasted coats, made from frieze or homespun, and of a dark brown, grey, or other quiet shade; a light drugget waistcoat, red shag or plush breeches, and black stockings. There is no necessity to trace the costumes of our ancestors further than the point here reached, as their varieties present few phases of special interest, and probably the most striking are already sufficiently familiar to our readers. A sure, though somewhat unsteady, decline was shortly inaugurated in the sumptuous and elaborate dresses of the people, which continued its course of reform until the more economical and unostentatious dress of modern days had usurped the place of the showy habiliments of the eighteenth century.

THE COUNTRY or district of the Fylde may be briefly described as broad and flat, for although in many places it is raised in gentle undulations, no hill of any altitude is to be seen upon its surface. The fertility of its soil has long been acknowledged, and a visit to its fruitful fields during the warm months of summer would disclose numbers of rich acres yellow with the ripening grain, while potatoe and bean-fields, meadow and pasture-lands, orchards and fruit gardens, are scattered over the wide area. Our design in the present instance is not, however, to enlarge upon these cultivated features, but to notice some of the more striking natural peculiarities, and to arrange in a classified list sundry of the rarer wild plants growing in the neighbourhood, enumerating also the different birds and sea-fowl, which are either natives or frequenters of the locality.

The features most calculated by their singularity to attract the attention of the stranger on surveying this division of the county are the moss-lands, the sand-hills, the mere at Marton, and the stunted appearance and inclination from the sea of those trees situated anywhere in the vicinity of the coast.

The great moss of the Fylde lies in the township of Marton, and extends six miles from north to south, and about one mile from east to west. On examining the structure of this moss, below the coarse herbage covering its surface, is discovered a substance called peat, brown and distinctly fibrous at its upper part, but becoming more and more compact as we descend, until at the bottom is presented a firm, dark-coloured, or even black mass, betraying less evidence, in some cases barely perceptible, of

its fibrous formation. Beneath the peaty layer is a thick bed of clay, having imbedded in it, either partially or wholly, large trunks of trees-oak, yew, fir, etc., which, by their frequency and arrangement, show that at some period the extensive tract must have been a dense woodland, but at what particular era it is impossible, with any degree of exactness, to determine. The disinterment, however, of certain Celtic relics from the substance of the peat, which may be supposed to have belonged to the aboriginal Britons of the section, inclines us to the opinion that the lower layers of the moss were formed, and consequently the forest overthrown, anterior to the Roman occupation of our island, but how long before that time it was standing, must remain purely a matter of conjecture, unless some reliable proofs of its more precise antiquity are disclosed during operations in the turf. The manner in which the demolition of the forest was effected is also somewhat wrapt in obscurity, although it is probable that the noble trees of which it was composed were overturned and uprooted by the fury of some wide-spread inundation or the violence of some terrific hurricane. The fearful devastations, both or either of the elements here brought into action can accomplish, are too well marked in the histories of other countries for us to hesitate in ascribing to them the power of overthrowing, under similar turbulent conditions, even so substantial an obstruction as the forest must have been; but a careful study of the locality and of the several sudden incursions of the tide which have occurred during recent years, leads to the belief that the sea was the chief destructive agent, and that the gale which hurled the raging volumes of water over the low-lying lands at the south of Blackpool, and the then level wooded tract beyond, assisted only in the ruinous work. In support of such a hypothesis may be instanced the flood of 1833, when a tide, only estimated to rise to a height of sixteen feet, but greatly swollen by a furious storm from the south-west, burst over at that spot, swept away several dwelling-houses in its course, battered down the hedges, and laid waste the fields far into the surrounding country. Had this inundation occurred during the high spring tides, it is impossible to say to what extent its ravages might have been carried, but the incident as it stands, being within the recollection of many still living, and by no means a solitary example of the usual direction

taken by the storm-driven waves, furnishes an apt illustration of the most natural way in which the downfall of the forest may have been accomplished. The Rev. W. Thornber, who has bestowed much time and labour on the subject, says :—“ There are some facts that will go far to prove that these forests, once standing on Marton Moss, were overthrown by an inundation of the sea, viz., every tree on the Moss, as well as the Hawes, lies in a south-eastern direction from the shore; and the bank, which appears to have been the extent of this irruption, commencing at the Royal Hotel, runs exactly in the same direction. The shells, similar to those collected on the shore, intermixed with wrack of the sea, which are found in abundance under the peat, also corroborate this supposition. Moreover the tide is constantly depositing a marine silt similar to that which lies beneath the peat, and in some instances upon it."

The wreck of such a vast number of trees would cause a great but gradual alteration in the surface of the ground. The masses of fallen timber, blocking up the streamlets and obstructing drainage, would create a more or less complete stagnation of water upon the land; the bark, branches, and leaves undergoing a process of decay would form the deepest layers of the peat; rank herbage and aquatic plants springing up and dying in endless succession, would form annual accumulations of matter, which in course of time would also be assimilated into peat, and in this manner the moss overlaying the original clayey surface and burying the ancient forest, would grow step by step to its present dimensions. Again, each layer of peat, as they were successively formed, would press upon those beneath, so that the weight of its own increase would give firmness and solidity to the substance of the moss. Thus we see that the whole secret of the creation or formation of the moss is simply a process of growth, decay, and accumulation of certain vegetable products annually repeated. The huge moss of Pilling and Rawcliffe owes its existence to similar phenomena.

The large mounds, or star-hills as they are called, which undulate the coast line from Lytham to South-Shore, are composed simply and purely of sand, covered over with a coarse species of herb, bearing the name of star-grass. Similar eminences at one time occupied the whole of the marine border of the Fylde,