AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 255 



one, alike in botany and in morals, " By 

 their fruits ye shall know them." 



What a world within a world the forest is ! 

 Under the trees were the shrubs, knee-high 

 rock -maples making the ground verdant for 

 acres together, or dwarf thickets of yew, now 

 bearing green acorn-like berries ; while below 

 these was a variegated carpet, oxalis and the 

 flower of Linnaeus, ferns and club-mosses (the 

 glossy Lycopodium lucidulum was especially 

 plentiful), to say nothing of the true mosses 

 and the lichens. 



Of all these things I should have seen more, 

 no doubt, had not my head been so much of 

 the time in the tree-tops. For yonder were the 

 birds ; and how could I be expected to notice 

 what lay at my feet, while I was watching in- 

 tently for a glimpse of the warbler that flitted 

 from twig to twig amid the foliage of some beech 

 or maple, the very lowest branch of which, 

 likely enough, was fifty or sixty feet above the 

 ground. It was in this way (so I choose to be- 

 lieve, at any rate) that I walked four or five 

 times directly over the acute-leaved hepatica 

 before I finally discovered it, notwithstanding it 

 was one of the plants for which I had all the 

 while been on the lookout. 



I said that the birds were in the tree-tops ; 

 but of course there were exceptions. Here and 



