Mr. R. Spruce on the Musci and Hepatice of the Pyrenees. 105 
The most notable are Ceratodon purpureus and Funaria hygro- 
metrica. Tortula ruralis is associated with these until in the in- 
feralpine zone it meets and is supplanted by 7. aciphylla, which 
I have never seen away from the sheep-cotes and the huts of the 
shepherds. At about the same height Hypnum rutabulum and 
Bryum capillare give place to Hypnum plicatum and Leskea in- 
curvata; these last, along with Yortula aciphylla, indicate the 
localities where the domesticated animals have taken up their 
temporary sojourn, throughout all the higher mountains. 
The cryptogamic vegetation of the Pyrenees, taken in the mass, 
has great general resemblance to that of our own islands, espe- 
cially of Ireland, and the species common to both attain nearly 
the same comparative altitude. Yet there are features in the 
former which would forcibly strike a bryologist accustomed onl 
to the mosses of the British Isles. About the foot of the Pyrenees 
he would be struck with the luxuriant fructification of Dicranum 
glaucum and Leucodon sciuroides, the fruit of the latter being one 
of the greatest rarities of our islands; and he would equally re- 
mark the absence of Bryum cespiticium, of which I gathered only 
_ a single tuft, on a wall near Oloron; nor has it been observed 
elsewhere in the Pyrenees, though we are accustomed to look on 
it as the commonest of mosses. Bryum cernuum and inclinatum 
are almost equally scarce, though frequent with us and ascending 
high into the mountains. Were he next to climb the lower cal- 
careous hills, he would see Hypnum rugulosum, abietinum, and 
Leskea attenuata profusely covering the scattered stones and 
rocks, and forming quite a marked feature even in the scenery. 
But he would miss Hypnum undulatum and. the Sphagna which 
ornament our moist turfy hills ; and if he ascended: higher, he 
would probably see no Splachna or Andreae. The rarity of the 
latter cannot be attributed to the southern latitude of the Pyre- 
nees, for they exist even under the equator, as for instance on 
Mount Pichincha. The abundance of these two genera in the 
Alps of Switzerland must give a character to their vegetation 
wanting in the Pyrenees ; and in general the Alps would seem 
to be much more mossy than the Pyrenees, above the region of 
forests, giving birth for example to an immense number of Brya, — 
which in the Pyrenees are nowhere abundant above the inferal- 
pine zone. This may reasonably be attributed to the more 
northerly position of the Alps, to their extending through a far 
wider zone of latitude, and not consisting like the Pyrenees of a 
single narrow chain; and to their greater humidity, which is 
probably-dependent on the immense breadth of snow that perpe- 
_ tually covers them. The species described in this catalogue as 
new have none of them been observed in the Alps, with the ex- 
ception of Hypnum Pyrenaicum, which was the only one noticed 
