Ransier: Hunting the Hart's Tongue 35 



ing in a farmer's barnyard. True, they were not large 

 ones, nor were there a great quantity of them, but it 

 would be hard to imagine anything more unexpected. 

 Eroded pockets in large rocks that poked their heads 

 above the surface here and there, afforded a foothold, 

 and the pockets being narrow and deep enough, the 

 cattle were unable to reach the fronds. The colonies 

 appeared to have been long established and really looked 

 better than many of similar size in the wilds. 



My second pleasure was the finding of a clump of dry 

 fronds of the slender cliff brake, back from the face of 

 the cliff some 20 feet at the edge of a fissure. 



Kemble and McLeans Mountain were reached on my 

 last trip out, and as they were some 10 or 12 miles out, I 

 drove there. It had turned colder that morning and 

 by the time I had arrived at McLeans Mountain, it had 

 begun to snow a little. The "mountain" may appear as 

 such from the waters of the Sound, which nearly reach 

 its foot on the east, but it would commonly pass for a 

 "hill" as one approaches it by the road. It looks as if 

 it had parted from the high land half a mile back from it, 

 and slipped off towards the water when the earth was 

 young. I had read of Hart's tongues being found "in 

 deep shade" at Owen Sound, and fancied that it wxmld 

 be growing under trees that grew close to the water 

 along little coves, and half expected it would be neces- 

 sary to row along in a boat to discover its haunts. Here 

 at McLeans Mountain it grew nearer the water than any 

 other spot I visited, but in this case it was fully a quarter 

 of a mile from the shore. P. Lon chilis was abundant and 

 thrifty, while Scolopendriums were not hard to find, but 

 with one exception were undersized. The exception was 

 a colony of about 15 or 20 good, healthy, vigorous ones, 

 a quarter of the way down the face of the slope, with 

 large, loose rocks all around, slightly shaded, and in just 

 such a place as one w r ould reasonably expect to find them 

 in central New York. 



