70 BRITISH MOSSES. 



of the Coal period from our trees. In a word, I find myself, 

 whenever in the country, surrounded by a world of beauty 

 and interest which I only dimly perceived before I entered on 

 the study, though I have never, I hope, been entirely un- 

 observant of things around me. More than ever I can 

 say 



" In small proportions we just beauties see, 

 And in short measures life may perfect be." 



"But how shall I begin the study?" some may say. 

 Gather the first moss you come across, examine it with the 

 naked eye, and then with a microscope, and you will have 

 made some advance. If the British Museum be accessible 

 to you, go to the Botanical Department and examine the 

 collection beautifully arranged and exposed in one of the 

 rooms upstairs. But books you must have books to aid 

 you, and therefore I will suggest a few. Bagnall's "Hand- 

 book of Mosses " will, I believe, be found a very useful 

 first book, and is very inexpensive. " The Handbook 

 of Cryptogamic Botany," by Bennett and Murray, will be a 

 very good one with which to begin the study of the 

 organization of the Mosses. Berkeley's " Handbook of 

 British Mosses " may serve as the second book on classifi- 

 cation. Wilson's " Bryologia Britannica" is a more 

 advanced book of the same description, and difficult to get. 

 Dr. Braithwaite's " British Moss Flora," which is in course 

 of publication, is a more elaborately illustrated and ex- 

 pensive book. Two works of Schimper's " Recherches 

 sur les Mousses" and " Entwickelungsgeschichte der 

 Torfmoose " are admirable, and his " Synopsis Muscorum 

 Europaeorum" is very helpful, especially for finding 



