FILICES. 59 



" The troc fi'in ^vliicli appears under AVallidi's name of Poli/podiiim giganteum 

 ■will bo Ibuud iu the following Cutalog;u(- under Sir Wni. Hooker's name of Aluojihihi 

 gigantca;^ but Moore more reeeutly refers it to Ahaphila glabra. Ho remarks, 'it 

 sometimes becomes difficult to distinguish Alsophila and I'ulgpodium.' Where there 

 is no natural boundary, why make an artilieial one ? 



"The silver fern is referred to yothocJihvna argentea, that being the systematic 

 name under -which it is described in the latest work on ferns to which 1 then had 

 access ; but I since find that Sir Wm. Hooker refers it to Cheilanthes argentea. 

 Moore observes : ' Nvthochlana has all the habit of Cheilanthes, witli which some of 

 the species have much affinity." 



" One of the most common ferns in Burma, very abundant at the base of the 

 old walls of Toung-ngoo, is the four-eared I'terin, P. qitadriaurita, easily recognized 

 by each of the lower pair of pinna; being double, so as to suggest two pairs of cars. 

 To the description of this species Sir Wm. Hooker devotes a dozen lines of large 

 type, and then adds 12 dozen lines in small type mainly to an exposition of the 

 synonyms." — F.il. , 



Our good and worthy missionary has been a little hard here, I think, on 

 botanists, indeed, on naturalists generally ; fur, although a confused heap of 

 synonyms and a multiplicity of barbarous names might reasonably be pronounced 

 to be an inconvenience, they hardly deserve to be stigmatized as an opprobrium ; 

 and while the subject may legitimately afford (as it has afforded before now) a fair 

 mark for a shaft of good-humoured satire, it is hardly the occasion for so serious 

 a homily as he has read us. 



One wonders the more at Dr. Mason's warmth, when one reflects that but for 

 this very barbarous nomenclature, and for the aid of those artificial boundaries with 

 which naturalists furnished him, he would have been simply unable to compile the 

 work in which he evidently took such pleasure, which will cause his name to be 

 remembered in Burma as that of an ardent observer and lover of nature, and the 

 only fault of which is the icunt and not the execus of that artificial symmetry which 

 yet he so strongly decries! He must have forgotten, too, when he called a synoptical 

 table " valuable," that its value lay wholly in its artificial character. 



" Where there is no natural boundary, why make an artificial one?" I presume, 

 in order to bring part at least of this boundless nature within handling distance. 

 Its vastness makes definition necessary; in no other way can it be dealt with. 

 Sgstem means putting loose materials into shape, and this must be an artificial 

 process. And though we say (as we do) that nature refuses to be bound by system, 

 it is not, after all, so much nature that we bind as ourselves by it, in order that we 

 may learn her ways and instruct ourselves in her methods, by. following them iu 

 all their intricacies as far as we are able. And for this we want names and terms, 

 an<l their very increase shows that we arc pursuing her farther, and realize more 

 thoroughly her infinite variety ; and in so doing we do no violence to nature, but 

 reap infinite advantage to ourselves. 



To come to Ferns and to the point. Fewer names, of course, sufficed when less 

 was known — Fteris, for example, when known ferns were few, might be used to 

 designate all those whieli had their " sori continuous on the margin " ; and J'o/y- 

 pndium, for that matter, to designate all the rest, without inconvenience. But as 

 the number increased, discrimination would become necessary, and with discrimina- 

 tion, subdivision, and with subdivision a greater attention to minute points of 

 structure, and, withal, new names. So that what was once a Fteris or a Polgpodium, 

 came to be called something else ; the old name being, however, retained for a section 



' Somp people call this word giganlea, 

 A rhyme most proper (or " infantia." 

 lint if you'd not otFiiid my ear, 

 1 pray vou, call it ijiytuitca. 

 And vi't to blame you I'll not venture. 

 Should you call a siYiYc-feru, ari/eiitcit. 

 Nor deem me in this thing pedantic — 

 I point you to a fault gigantic. — C.P. 



