GO ON THE STUDY OF THE MOSSES. 



every day cares of a busy life, and nothing is so likely to do this as some 

 pursuit that not only engrosses the attention but also gladdens the eye, 

 that calls forth healthy thought, educates the observing faculties, and 

 stimulates us to take a certain amount of invigorating exercise. To any 

 person -u-itli ordinary enthusiasm, interest, and Industry, the study of the 

 mosses will yield all this and more. 



Too frequently these plants are neglected by even professed botanists. 

 The investigation of them is considered to be too difficult, or too tedious, 

 and often too expensive. That there are difficulties connected with the 

 study all must admit, but none that a little patience and industry will 

 not surmount ; the tedium of the study would evaporate after the first 

 few hours' examination of these beautiful organisms, and the expense 

 after the first outlaj' need not be more than a little extra wear and tear 

 of one's shoe leather. 



To say that the study of these plants is interesting would be trite, 

 for everything in beautiful natui'e is interesting, but the "dim world of 

 weeping mosses" is wondi'ously intei'esting ; so varied in structure, in form, 

 in mode of growth, in colour, covering the bosom of their mother earth 

 with a green, velvety mantle when the cold winds of autumn and 

 winter have robbed the trees of their beautiful foliage, and the nipping 

 frosts have chilled into death their lovely sisters, the flowering plants, 

 clothing with beauty the wayside bank, clinging with a tender embrace 

 to their high-born kinsman the forest tree, bedecking with a thousand 

 fairy urns the old ruined wall, covering with beautifully mingled masses 

 of feathery Hijpnum, tufted Bryitm, or hoary Tortula, of every shade of 

 green, the rotting thatch of the ruined cottage, fiUing the treacherous 

 bog with pale green Sjjhagmivt, or beautiful tussocks of noble look- 

 ing Polytrichum, flourishing amid the unpleasant odours of the poison 

 breathing mai'sh, and climbing slowly, but surely, from the lowest valley 

 to the snow line of the great mountain ! 



And were we to follow them in their daring scramble, and note them 

 well, we should see that the mosses are not only countless in numbers, but 

 multitudinous in varieties and spebies ; the moss flora of om* own islands 

 alone nximbering about 140 genera and nearly 600 species, besides 

 varieties without end. A superficial observer would probably be 

 astonished if he were to have pointed out to him the vai'ied species to be 

 found upon a few square feet of a bank " with bright green mosses clad,'' 

 because to him a moss is a moss and nothing more ; and yet in such a 

 limited area twenty or moi-e species may often be found ; and many a 

 district that at first sight seems able to yield biit a poor moss flora may 

 by a little diligence be proved to be quite prolific. A limited district of 

 some .3,-500 acres has yielded the writer nearly 130 species of these jilants, 

 all of them beautiful and some of them very rare. 



Then it must be remembei'ed that mosses are easily pi-eserved, 

 usually retain their special characters even when dried, may be pi-epared 

 for the herbarium, and packed in comparatively small compass, and may 

 be examined at any time ; for, however shrivelled they may have become 

 by long keeping, a few minutes' soaking in tepid water will restore them 



