87. FILICES. 2'17 



LXXXVII. FILICES. 



By including the Filices in this work, together with the 

 somewhat discordant group of " Pteridioides " (Lycopodi- 

 acese, &c.) which will follow them, I ijass now bej'-ond the 

 phrenogamous plants, to which my former writings on the 

 localities and distribution of plants have been almost ex- 

 clusivelj" restricted. At the time of compiling the New 

 Botanist's Guide it was a question with me, whether the 

 Ferns should be included therein, and the question was 

 answered in the negative, in consequence partlj' of an ap- 

 plication from Mr. Francis, who requested the loan of my 

 notes and lists, and undertook to publish the localities 

 and altitudes in his then foiihcoming Analysis of British 

 Ferns. This undertaking was performed, although not 

 without sundry errors and miscopj-ings of the manuscript 

 notes. Subsequently, the publications of Mr. Newman 

 have very gi^eatly improved our knowledge of the Ferns 

 and of then* localities ; so that the omission of the latter 

 from the New Guide has been since well made up for. 

 Mr. Newman's collection of localities, however, is open to 

 one very grave objection, in the use of an alphabetical ar- 

 rangement of the counties, which of necessity disperses 

 the localities into a pell-mell medley. If we attempt to 

 trace distribution by aid of Mr. Newman's books, we are 

 comijelled to skip from Cornwall to Cumberland, from 

 Cambridge to Caernarvon, from Kent to Lancashii'e ; and 

 then to skip back, to and fro, among the other counties 

 which are intermediate between those by theii* geogi'aphi- 

 cal position, although their names happen not to be inter- 

 mediate alphabeticall}'. In a work on the British Ferns, 

 now in press from the pen of Mr. Moore, and a small part 



