common or normal forms abound, there is a chance of 

 finding a "sport" and that when such a "sport" is 

 discovered it is usually a solitary specimen, and so mixed 

 up or hidden, partly or wholly, by its common associates 

 that a very keen eye and a persistent investigation of every 

 clump are required to detect it. Superficially, therefore, 

 the remark is justified, but let the expert take that district 

 in hand for a day or so, and he will be unfortunate indeed 

 if he does not return with a find or two, possibly rare or 

 new, but in any case constituting an interesting souvenir 

 of the locality. The " find," as we have said, may be 

 anywhere, old walls, pollard trees, rocky chinks, stone 

 dykes by the roadside, the sloping hedge banks of shady 

 lanes, or the ferny recesses of woods and glens, all forms 

 of habitat indeed may be teeming with normals from tiny 

 seedlings or dwarfed adults to shoulder-high specimens 

 forming a jungle. Thousands, or even tens of thousands 

 of these come under the fern hunter's eye in the day's 

 search, and then, perhaps, when almost despairing of a bag, 

 a tiny tassel or the tip of an extra finely cut or otherwise 

 varied frond is sighted, and lo ! on extricating the fern from 

 the crowd, all its fronds are seen to be so characterized, and a 

 more or less valuable gem is unearthed to swell the hunter's 

 collection. It is in this way that considerably over a 

 thousand distinct varieties have been found and recorded, 

 and it is in this way that that number is constantly being 

 added to by those who make a hobby of fern hunting from 

 the varietal side as distinct from those who raid the common 

 ones by the basketful, and in many cases have thus 

 destroyed Nature's raw material for long distances round 

 popular and otherwise ferny resorts. We, ourselves, have 

 been, more jocularly than seriously, accused of similar 

 vandalism when, after a week or so's search, we have 

 returned with a boxful of acquisitions, but there is a vital 

 difference between the two classes of collection. Follow 

 the ordinary raider, and we may often see the collected roots 

 subsequently thrown away when by neglect they have 

 wilted and lost their freshness, or if they reach home alive 



