44 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



leaves will look cheerful when all else of summer verdure 

 has departed; even in those dull close days which often 

 succeed a sudden thaw, 



' ' When there is not wind enough to twirl 

 The one red leaf, the last of its clan, 

 That dances as often as dance it can, 

 Hanging so light, and hanging so high, 

 On the topmost twig that looks up to the sky." 



Coleridge. 



We grow, on the contrary, in watery places, said a beau- 

 tiful beech fern, that waved beside the torrent. We are 

 peculiarly the fern of waterfalls : our roots are black and 

 fibrous, and form ofttimes a complete net-work over the per- 

 pendicular face of rocks, within reach of the torrent's spray. 

 Our delight is in such localities ; for although bearing the 

 name of beech, as if attracted exclusively to her roots, and 

 haunting only forest walks, such are not our assigned loca- 

 lities. Rapid mountain rills and waterfalls, as those of 

 Dartmoor, and the falls of Ogwin and Loch Catrine, attract 

 us with a resistless power. 



