104 MOSSES AND LIVERWORTS 



occupation of leisure hours, can exert an influence 

 on bodily and mental well-being and who will be 

 so bold as to deny that they may ? then, with 

 the herbalist of old, I would recommend this 

 pursuit as a means of adding to health, and con- 

 sequently to the happiness of life. 



Number of Species. The liverworts are much 

 fewer in number, both as regards genera and 

 species, than the mosses, so that the moss-hunter 

 will not be greatly enlarging his work if he in- 

 cludes them in his field of operations, especially as 

 the two kinds of plant are so constantly found 

 growing in close proximity the one to the other. 

 The most modern catalogue yet published gives 

 between two and three hundred different British 

 species. Though many of these have a fairly wide 

 distribution some few, in particular, being dis- 

 tinctly common yet a great many of them are 

 but seldom found, and, in turning over the pages 

 of one of the more recent works on the subject, 

 one cannot but be struck with the comparatively 

 frequent repetition of such phrases as " somewhat 

 rare," or " not common." This fact may, no 

 doubt, to some extent militate against the general 

 attractiveness of the study ; but for those who are 

 able, even occasionally, to go farther afield than 

 their own immediate locality and how many 

 more now, as compared with former days, manage 

 to spend at least a week in the summer or autumn 

 among the woods and the hills the fact that 



