v. A TUFT OF MOSS. 9 ! 



inhospitalities of the sky. They belong to inclement 

 seasons and climates, being mostly in perfection during 

 the winter months ; and although they are found in all 

 parts of the world, some of the largest and loveliest 

 species growing in the deep shades of tropical and sub- 

 tropical forests, yet as a class their maximum exists in 

 the north temperate and polar regions, where the skies 

 are always grey and cold, and the mists and rains in 

 which they luxuriate are almost constantly present. To 

 such desolate places, especially when lit up with the 

 mimic sunshine of the primrose and in the deeper 

 shades the pale moonlight of the sorrel and the 

 anemone, they impart no small share of that tender 

 pathetic beauty in the landscape which in northern 

 lands comes home with irresistible power to the heart. 

 They form the first film of verdure that gathers over the 

 newly-formed soil, and cover with a veil of delicate 

 beauty the ravages made by the storm and the glacier 

 on the mountain peak. They afford a striking proof 

 how nature loves to do gentle things even in her most 

 savage moods. I have seen the track of a winter 

 avalanche which had mown down great pines as if they 

 had been blades of grass, lined with the softest and 

 greenest moss, and the dry bed of an old torrent that 

 had cleft the side of a hill from top to bottom and 

 scattered destruction in its path, spread over with a rich 

 velvet carpet of the same beautiful material, out of 

 which grew myriads of forget-me-nots, whose brilliant 

 petals waving in the breeze and flashing in the sunlight, 

 looking like a little blue stream that had come direct 



