542 WILD FLOWEKS OF 



yet beautiful structures, must not imagine that his 

 researches are to be confined wholly to the days of 

 summer ; even in mid- winter, when the sun, blazing 

 for a moment on his eastern pillow, sinks oppressed 

 amidst the rhimy vapours that spread on all sides from 

 the dripping woods and saturated fields ; when the 

 north-westers hurry amongst the creaking, splitting, 

 and denuded boughs, scattering the last leaves upon 

 the paths all slimy with moisture and rotten foliage ; 

 when mud, sludge, mire, and puddle combine in the 

 romantic rural lanes with ruts of depth profound, 

 whose treacherous edges sink mid-knee deep at once 

 in the vainly-attempted passage ; when it seems cold 

 enough to ensure a frost, and yet so gloomy, foggy, 

 and tempestuous, that the black wood already in idea 

 echoes to the pealing rain, and the cawing crow is the 

 only visible inhabitant of the eclipsed day even in 

 these decembral hours of gloom, the muscologist must 

 be abroad to behold the objects of his delight in their 

 perfection. Nor will it do merely to " look-out" in 

 the shrubbery for a moment, and run in like a cat 

 from the drip of the trees ; the mosses, even at this 

 time in their brightest luxuriance in winter, must be 

 sought for on the spungy sward of the bleak exten- 

 sive moor, or the " moss-clad stones " swept by the 

 bitter mountain blast, or in the wildest depth of humid 

 woods, midst 



lt Wither'd boughs grotesque, 



Stript of their leaves and twigs by hoary age, 

 From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth 

 In the low vale, or on steep mountain side." * 



For had their oozy foliage and plumose stems, voices 



WORDSWORTH. 



