I960-I90I.] 6l7 



" Whether this singular fact is due to a greater capacity for 

 sporting in our native species, owing to climate or other con- 

 ditions, or whether it is due to the fact that here alone we have 

 had a persistent coterie of fern hunters, engaged for half a 

 century in this cult, cannot with certainty be said." 



The counties to which my attention was given were Antrim, 

 Down, Derry, Armagh, Sligo, Leitrim, Louth, Wicklow, 

 Dublin, in Ireland, and Westmoreland in England. These 

 counties are full of glens and ravines, and in all parts full of 

 ferns, that well repay the hunter. One cannot be a fern hunter 

 alone, so many other objects of interest arise, that one is obliged 

 to notice them. Besides ferns I made a good collection of 

 alpine plants and shrubs. 



Views of mountain and heath and moorland always had 

 charms for me, our own counties have scenes which could be 

 fitly described by the following poetical description : — 

 4 ' A wealth of heather glimmering far and wide, 



Pink spray, and crimson tuft, and waxen bell ; 



A thousand spears of yellow asphodel 



Guarding each hollow where marsh mosses hide, 



And butterworts and sundews brown abide ; 



A mountain tarn where pale lobelias dwell ; 



Grey lichened rocks all slanted down the fell, 



And far-off bills with purple splendours dyed ; 



Such picture 1 would grave upon my soul, 



That, in some day of weary toil and care, 



When the world's hoarse, ioud clamours round me roll, 



I may turn inwards from the din and glare, 



And for one moment all these fair things see, 



And cheer me with the beautiful and free." 



When I commenced fern hunting in 1885 comparatively 

 little was known of what we call varietal development. The 

 history of the British fern varieties is almost wholly comprised 

 within the last fifty years. Before 1850 only some half-a-dozen 

 to half-a-score of varieties seem to have been recognised. 

 From that time forward each year produced new forms by 

 diligent hunting, the names of which would take too long to 

 enumerate, but are very fully given in Dr. Stansfield's paper 

 on the subject. 



In his remarks on the finds of each year, he says — "The 

 year 1877 is famous for the discovery of two very fine angulare 



