Chap. 12.] GEOLOGY, BOTANY, &c. 



259 



Botany cf the District. 

 To the lover of nature there are few .studies so attractive, so absorbing, 

 and so satisfying, as the study of our native plants. Doubtless this is 

 in a measure due to the health-giving nature of the pursuit. Our 

 army of botanists is recruited chiefly from among those who are con- 

 fined to cities or towns during a greater part of the year The diversity 

 of scenery encountered in the search for objects in themselves of infinite 

 variety of form and colouring, the necessity for extra muscular exertion, 

 the little difiiculties to be overcome, and the inspiration of an unwonted 

 supply of oxygen, combine to give such elasticity to the spirits that a 

 new " find" is all that is necessary to produce a flutter of pleasurable 

 excitement very beneficial to the health of those whose ordinary duties 

 are of a sedentary character. 



" A primrose on the river's brim, 

 A yellow primrose is to him, 

 But it is something more. " 



For obvious reasons the botanist's excursions are usually made 

 during the sunny months, when the decorative goddess is most lavish. 

 It is then her votaries may be seen in wood and meadow, on mountain 

 side and summit, by brook and lake, in shady dell and deep ravine, 

 loading their vasculums with her choicest offerings. 



But there are no reasons, other than those of weather and the exi- 

 gencies of business, why the study of botany in the field should be 

 confined to the summer months. It should be continued whenever 

 opportunity occurs during every month of the year. Many of our 

 rarer plants are found in flower only in early spring, others again only 

 in late autumn ; whHe quite one-half of our cryptogams are at their 

 best between October and AprH. To those who would enrich their 

 coUections with specimens of these more humble, but not less beautiful 

 and interesting members of our flora, the walls, woods, and moors of 

 Longridge FeU wiU weU repay a thorough search during the colder 

 months of the year. 



In the autumn the woods abound with fungi of exquisite shades of 

 brown, red, yeUow, and purple. The gaudy Eussula emetica and the 

 beautiful scarlet Peziza aurantia were quite abundant here in 1883. 

 Several of the esculent species also occur, and iu numbers sufficient to 



