MINIATURE FERN CAVERNS. 



how this little world of moss and lichen was 

 formed. Let him, however, but think a moment,, 

 and the big stone on which . he has pensively 

 seated himself will tell the sfcory of this fairy 

 cavern. 



Time was when the hedge-bank was dry and 

 bare of vegetation, and no water trickled over its- 

 sides from the level above it. But Nature is never 

 still. Her moods are always changing; and from 

 time to time she makes the silent hills musical 

 with the voice of some water spring which she 

 causes to flow. The spring bubbles up, runs across 

 the gentle crest of the uplands, and in its course 

 falls over the face of our hedge-bank, permeating 

 and moistening its substance. Vegetation follows- 

 the course of the stream, embowering the hedge- 

 bank in leanness. Its volume increases, its flow 

 becomes perennial, and soon the action of the 

 streamlet loosens one rocky mass in the stony em- 

 bankment. The earth beneath by the same action 

 is partially washed away, and the boulder drops 

 from its place into the roadway. The water which 

 had streamed over its surface now flows into the 

 newly-made fissure, and makes it moist and cool. 



197 



