THE RATTLESNAKE FERN AND THE 

 ADDER'S-TONGUE. 



DMIRERS of ferns have always been puzzled 

 to understand why ferns and serpents should 

 be so indissolubly joined in popular opinion. 

 Just as the average individual imagines every 

 species of snake to possess fangs and venom 

 and regards it as something like a duty to 

 kill it, so does he consider ferns to be the 

 natural protectors of these creatures and to be shunned 

 accordingly. This suspicion of the ferns may not have 

 originated as early as our antipathy to serpents, but it 

 seems scarcely less deeply rooted in human nature. We 

 have hardly passed the age when ferns were supposed to 

 be endowed with the power to work charms, discover 

 treasure and terrorize devils. It is possible that the mys- 

 terious way in which they reproduce their kind without 

 visible flowers and seed and the haunts they affect in the 

 dank thickets and gloomy ravines have contributed to 

 keep alive the superstitions concerning them ; but what- 

 ever the cause, several of these harmless plants are still 

 known as snake-brakes while the two to be mentioned 

 in this chapter have been singled out as special objects 

 of aversion. 



The Rattlesnake Fern. 



Probably there is no fern in whose haunts serpents of 

 any kind are less frequent, than the species which bears 



