CHAPTER VI. 



ABOUT A FERN. 



FERNS are among the most beautiful and graceful 

 of Nature's productions, especially when seen in their 

 native haunts. To find these haunts we must seek 

 out localities where moisture is abundant, but not 

 stagnant ; in the woods, where the interlacing boughs, 

 with their wealth of greenery, form a protecting awn- 

 ing, through which the sun's rays are sifted and 

 robbed of their fierceness. Here in the subdued 

 light like the light that falls upon the cathedral 

 floor, which in passing through the stained-glass 

 windows brings their colours with it to the floor 

 here, exhibiting the most exquisite softness of tint and 

 elegant drooping curves, they throw out their lace-like 

 fronds, and fill the air with a fine aroma peculiarly 

 their own. In such a spot, even the despised bracken 

 of the scorched-up common, or the dusty roadside, is 

 positively beautiful, and one of the most graceful 

 objects we wish to see. Or let us seek some deep 

 secluded glen where rocks are piled on either side, 

 with overhanging trees, whose leaves lend grateful 

 shelter. Here, jutting out in myriads from the cre- 

 vices of moss-covered boulders, and even from the 

 mossy surface itself, large, bright -green arching 



