4< HISTORY OF BRITISH TERNS. 



pleasing, even to tliose ^vllo arc slow to perceive beauty 

 apart from rich and gaudy colouring. 



The number of the native species of Ferns may be taken 

 at from forty to fifty, according as some of the more doubt- 

 ful forms are ranked as species or varieties. In a botanical 

 point of view, tlie lower estimate is probably the more 

 correct, as the experience we have of the variability of 

 some of the so-called species tends somewhat to the con- 

 clusion that they arc insensibly united by intermediate 

 forms. In so far, however, as their cultivation is concerned, 

 or when the Ferns are taken up as a "fancy," the higher 

 number is too low ; for in all such cases, whenever one 

 l^lant is palpably different from another, it forms a legiti- 

 mate subject for culture, or for study, as a distinct object, 

 thouj2;h the differences mav be of such a character as would 

 lead the rigid botanist to brand it as being one of tiiose 

 which he considers not '•' specifically distinct" from others 

 with which he would have it associated. 



There is some acrimony, and a good deal of pedantry 

 abroad, on both sides of this question, of the limits of the 

 species of plants, with which, happily, in this brief descrip- 

 tive history of the British Ferns, we shall have no occasion 

 to intermeddle. 



