too LOCH CRERAN. 



precarious foothold. We are "wreckers" among the 

 mass of sea-driven spoil far over ordinary highwater mark, 

 and yet the mosses are gay and exquisitely constructed 

 far below the banded seaware. There is a beautiful grey 

 lichen creeping over the rocks, upon which a little red 

 fungus has settled, sprinkling it all over with vermillion 

 spots of various sizes ; and, indeed, scarce a spot they 

 can get a hold upon but is covered with some cryptogamic 

 plant of beauty that will well repay gathering for closer 

 inspection. See those green puckered d'oyleys, with 

 grey beads, hung all over that other tree stem ! Some 

 young ladies' boarding school in the vicinity has been 

 holding an exhibition apparently but no, they are only 

 the leathery lichens, growing in a circular form all over 

 the bank. Green, and slate, and purple, to rich black, 

 they are festooning or adorning the trees around. Now, 

 why is it that the fir tribe are mostly in happy ignorance 

 of this rich adornment ? for, except a sapless grey lichen 

 on the branches of the larch, all are upon the deciduous 

 trees. The oak is perhaps richest in specimens if not in 

 species, while the beech has some especial beauties upon 

 its dead logs, and no small display upon its living stem. 

 The birch, too, is in no want of extraneous clothing, and 

 yet the beech and birch more especially are smooth- 

 stemmed trees, and give no more foothold to the spores 

 of these plants than the various pines, nor anything like 

 the facilities of the wrinkled hides of well-grown larches. 

 We want "more light" on this subject ere risking a 

 theory of any sort. It may be that these " foreigners " 

 are too recent interlopers to have created or adopted a set 

 of hangers-on of their own, while trees like the British 

 oak have been so long acclimatised that a numerous 

 family of dependants, have been created to flourish 



