1906-1901.] 607 



worries, and must accept the inevitable chances of excessive 

 wear and tear which await other organs of the frame. At the 

 very least we may say, of change of occupation, that the im- 

 portant condition of absolute pleasantness and delight enjoyed 

 by the subject thereof is a very desirable tonic to the physical 

 units which work out our intellectual life. I can conceive 

 nothing more appalling to be contemplated than the spectacle 

 of a man engaged day by day in this manner, whose sole litera- 

 ture is represented by his daily paper, and whose life otherwise 

 is divided into a threefold cycle of sleeping, eating and working. 

 Such a man, I would say, if my observations of life be correct, 

 is more liable to nervous breakdown than even the hard-worked, 

 overwrought slave of modern commerce, literature, art or 

 science.'' 



Among the many pursuits that people follow now-a-days, for 

 instruction, as well as mere amusement, few have arisen in so 

 short a space of time, or deserve more attention than the study 

 of that mysterious class of plants known as ferns, which are as 

 most people are aware, a flowerless tribe, bearing, with one or 

 two exceptions, their fructification at the back of their fronds 

 or leaves in brown masses, sometimes round, sometimes oblong. 

 Unlike general botany, which gives comparatively little pleasure 

 after the flower is named, from the difficulty of preserving the 

 colour of the specimens, the study of ferns not only leads the 

 collector into the most picturesque scenery and wildest haunts 

 of nature, but by the winter fireside, or in the close rooms of 

 our ciowded cities, he has but to open his " Fern-book," and 

 the forms of his favourites appear before him, as green and 

 graceful as when they hung by the mountain torrent or waved 

 in some quiet shady lane, bring back to remembrance pleasant 

 summer rambles amid lovely scenes, making the heart swell 

 with gladness at the recollection of the forms of beauty and 

 purity on which he has been permitted to gaze. 



11 As odours, pressed in Summer's hours, 

 From Summer's bloom remain 

 To soothe and comfort, till the flowers 

 Of Spring revive again;" 



