2 HANDBOOK OF MOSSES. 



get the every-day cares of a busy life ; and nothing is so 

 likely to do this as some pursuit that not only engrosses 

 the attention, but also gladdens the eye, that calls forth 

 heal-thv . thought, . educates the observing faculties, and 

 stirmilafres us vb.'f-ake a certain amount of invigorating 

 exercise. . To any person with ordinary enthusiasm, inter- 

 net, aiid t '&dustFy,:the study .of the mosses will yield all this 

 and more. 



Too frequently these plants are neglected by even pro- 

 fessed botanists. The investigation of them is considered 

 to be too difficult, or too tedious, and often too expensive. 

 That there are difficulties connected with the study all must 

 admit, but none that a little patience and industry will not 

 surmount ; the tedium of the study would evaporate after 

 the first few hours' examination of these beautiful organ- 

 isms, and the expense after the first outlay need not be 

 more than a little extra wear and tear of one's shoe leather. 



To say that the study of these plants is interesting would 

 be trite, for everything in beautiful nature is interesting, but 

 the " dim world of weeping mosses " is wondrously interest- 

 ing ; so varied in structure, in form, in mode of growth, in 

 colour, covering the bosom of their mother earth with a 

 green, velvety mantle when the cold winds of autumn and 

 winter have robbed the trees of their beautiful foliage, and 

 the nipping frosts have chilled into death their lovely sisters, 

 the flowering plants, clothing with beauty the wayside bank, 

 clinging with a tender embrace to their high-born kinsman 

 the forest tree, bedecking with a thousand fairy urns the 

 old ruined wall, covering with beautifully mingled masses 

 of feathery Hypnum^ tufted Bryum^ or hoary Tortula^ of 

 every shade of green, the rotting thatch of the ruined 

 cottage, filling the treacherous bog with pale green Sphag- 

 num or beautiful tussocks of noble looking Polytrichum, 

 flourishing amid the unpleasant odours of the poison-breath- 

 ing marsh, and climbing slowly but surely from the lowest 

 valley to the snow line of the great mountain ! 



And were we to follow them in their daring scramble, 

 and note them well, we should see that the mosses are, not 

 only countless in numbers, but multitudinous in varieties 



