CHAPTER XXII. 



LICHENS. 



" While yet the forest trees 

 Were young upon the unviolated earth, 

 And yet the moss-stains on the rocks were new." 



Bryant. 



" The lichens that so love to hide, 

 From those who have no eyes to see 

 God's beauteous work in things so wee." 



HE bright spring days tempted us into the 

 Yorkshire woods, and while we added mosses 

 to our collection, and watched the early 

 attempts of the fern crooks to uncoil themselves, we 

 noticed various bright stains on rock and tree. Now the 

 dark grey bark seemed powdered with sulphur, or 

 brilliant violet, and now the frowning rock would be 

 stained with soft patches of white or glaucous green. We 

 surprised an eminent scholar and mathematician standing 

 with folded arms, wrapt in admiration of a group of 

 rocks thus coloured ; he was a painfully shy man, and was 

 generally known to avoid acquaintances in his rambles ; 

 but he advanced eagerly toward us, warmed out of his 

 shyness by his wish to gain information, and pointing to 



