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work or ideas of some kind or other, while the natural 

 hobby deals with the work of Nature, at any rate as a 

 basis, and it is to this class that the British Fern hobby 

 belongs. A natural hobby is absolutely inexhaustible, we 

 can never plunge deeply into it without perceiving that the 

 special branch involved in our studies is part and parcel of 

 the great scheme of Creation, with all its marvellous laws 

 and phenomena, while in a hobby of the other kind, the limit 

 is that of human capacity as contrasted with the infinite. 

 In my '•' case, perhaps, this enthusiasm has been emphasised 

 by peculiar good fortune, since success, whether the result 

 of chance or that of careful study, is bound to inspire 

 greater vigour in the pursuits concerned. 



Chance, indeed, has been the main factor with me in 

 establishing a hobby on successful lines. It was pure 

 chance that a mixed sowing of spores in 1881 should yield 

 two quite different varieties of Lady Ferns, a young 

 seedling of which in each case was dotted profusely with 

 bulbils. That was practically the starting point of recorded 

 observations, and it is a curious fact that despite hundreds 

 of subsequent sowings, it is only this year (thirty years 

 afterwards) that a similar experience has occurred. A 

 published record of this led to other bulbil-bearing Ferns 

 being submitted to me for my opinion, and this eventually 

 brought under my notice the bulbil-bearing pinna of A. f.f, 

 plumosiini eleganSf^hich. in two generations, from its associated 

 spores, gave the wonderfully beautiful and diverse strain of 

 the '' stt'pevbujii" plumosums to the world. This again was 

 pure chance ; I sowed merely to get eiegajis, which I did 

 not possess, and good fortune did the rest. It was to the 

 reputation based on the original bulbil discoveries (and 

 which led the late Mr. Burbridge to dub me " Bulbil 

 Druery") which brought the mysteriously barren and yet 

 apparently sporiferous ''A. ff, Clarissima Jones" under my 

 notice, and I still vividly remember my repeated remarks 

 to my wife during the investigations I was making in that 

 * These notes are too personal for the editorial " we." 



