54 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



sparkling drops. The black maiden-hair affects walls and 

 ruins, moored not unfrequently in the crannies of beetling 

 rocks, or waving in the stillness of yawning chasms, " where 

 life and limb would be perilled to obtain her " frequent also 

 on old tombs, beneath which have reposed for ages all that 

 remains of chivalry or beauty. You may not find the 

 royal polypody on tombs, nor yet in darkling crannies of 

 stern rocks, but rather on the summit of high mountains, 

 such as Glyder-war, that hill of tempests, where scarcely 

 any other plant can vegetate, swept over with resistless fury 

 by the fierce tempests that contend for mastery ; while his 

 relative, the hairy polypody, is stationed on a moist black 

 rock nearly at the top of Clogwyn y Garnedd in the Snowdon 

 range of hills, facing the north-west, and rising precipitously 

 above the lower lake. Lingering in the same locality 

 dwells that hermit-fern the marsh polypody, in a springy 

 dell at the foot of Snowdon, near Llanberris, with its dark 

 shadows and dripping rocks. Damp shady woods, or the 

 side of hills wet with oozing streams, allure the heath 



