1861.] FAVERSHAM PLANTS. 107 



dissected with no better success, and yet the animal deposits 

 eggs, and the mode and limits which Providence has assigned to 

 it to observe, as well as the smallest sprat, in reference to the 

 continuation of their respective species, is perfectly understood 

 by naturalists. 



Taking it as an established fact that all animals and half of 

 the vegetables are sexual, may we not infer that Ferns may be 

 sexual also, and that they bear the same analogy to fish as vas- 

 cular plants do towards the higher orders of animals ? May we 

 not without any great stretch of our imaginative faculties assume 

 that some of the plants, fronds, or spore-cases produce male 

 spores, and others female ? When the indusium bursts and the 

 spores disperse, it is quite probable that a male and a female 

 spore may frequently fall into the same nidus, and that the male 

 may be the progenitor of the marchantiate portion of the plant, 

 and the female be fertilized by the vegetative influence of the 

 male to produce the frond. By the way, I may observe that 

 when a pot of spores are under cultivation, many never survive 

 the marchantiate state. 



Now as all naturalists are well aware that fish^ which are a 

 lower order of animals than birds or beasts, deposit their eggs 

 prior to impregnation, is it going too far to assume that Divine 

 Providence, in its infinite wisdom, has thought proper to endow 

 a certain inferior order of vegetables with the means of propaga- 

 ting their species in a similar manner? 



To me such an hypothesis appears perfectly natural ; but, as 

 Sir Roger de Coverly replied when he had an abstruse question 

 propounded to him, " much may be said on both sides." 



PiSCATOR. 



"FAVERSHAM PLANTS.^ 



An Account of a few hours' Observations in and about the ancient 

 town of Faversham, Kent. 



On Monday, the Srd of September, 1860, we left the London 

 Bridge terminus of the North Kent railway for a week's bota- 

 nizing in south Kent, and we halted from three to four hours 

 (from between one and two o'clock to between five and six) to 



