LICHENS. 197 



old church sounded the hour previous to our feeding 

 time. This church had been restored since last I had 

 held commune with the "men o' Kent," so I determined 

 to spend the half hour now upon my hands in looking 

 round its venerable walls. Here I soon found myself 

 criticising the windward side of the tombstones with the 

 aid of my pocket lens. There were patches of spangle 

 lichen, both of the common and limestone species (Urceo- 

 laria calcarea, Plate XIV., Jig. 8), and the crab's-eye 

 litchen, and several others. The spangle lichens are dis- 

 tinguished by the vase-like shape of their receptacles. 

 As thus I sat, wearied with my long ramble, and think- 

 ing now of the varieties of living lichens, and now 

 of the solemn dead around me, I felt a deep quietness 

 steal over my spirit, and the poetic words of Buskin re- 

 curred to my mind. Speaking of mosses and lichens, he 

 says, "They will not be gathered, like the flowers, for 

 chaplet or love token, but of these the wild bird will make 

 its nest, and the tired child his pillow. And as the earth's 

 first mercy, so are they its last gift to us. When all 

 farther service is vain from plant and tree, the soft mosses 

 and grey lichens take up their watch by the headstone. 

 The woods, the blossoms, the oift-bearino; crasses have 

 done their parts for time, but these do service for ever ! 

 Trees for the builder's yard, corn for the granary, moss 

 for the grave I ,s 



As I drew near the fine old tiled dwelling of my 

 friend, I rapidly glanced over the successes of my day. 

 Of the ten first Hookerian families of lichens I had o;ot 

 specimens of eight, all being crustaceous except the 

 internal-fruited and the leprous lichens. Two more 



