( itt) 
SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF ‘THE FERN WORLD,” 
Illustrated London News. 
“The Fern World’ is both instructive and delightful in the highest degree, combining 
exact botanical description with the most inviting and enchanting accounts of many a ramble 
in the sweetest rural haunts. . . . But in this delightful book the study of botanical, generic, 
and specific varieties has obtained a fascinating and most helpful method of representation. 
This ts done by means of twelve of the finest plates, printed by Messrs. Leighton Brothers 
from photographs of fronds, collected and grouped by the author, which are unquestionably 
the most beautiful, vivid, and faithful pictures of plant-life that have ever yet appeared in any 
work of this class, They have all the freshness of the living hues of nature. Indeed, these 
ictures at first sight may often be mistaken, as we have actually seen, for real pieces of fern 
aid on or transferred to the paper. . .. It is further embellished with a frontispiece—a per- 
manent photograph of a certain fernery in town—and with fine wood engravings of Devonshire 
coast scenery, from which we are loth to turn away.” = : 
Queen, 
‘A beautiful, instructive, and bewitching book, Mr. Heath is a painter who adds colour 
to drawing, and produces a picture endued with life and grace. He gilds the pills of know- 
ledge which he administers with the most fascinating effect, and we believe the information 
given in the volume will be highly prized by fern collectors and amateurs. The author paints 
scenery with a glowing pencil; ands for such as love the beauties of nature and who have a 
special love for ferns the descriptive portions of the volume will prove a charm. We have 
gone through the book with real pleasure. . . . Of the illustrations it is not too much fo say 
that they are exquisite,” 
Daily News, 
“Mr, Heath's dntgreatitg volume is profusely and beautifully illustrated. The specimens 
printed in colours add much to the attractions and the value of the book,” : 7 
Land and Water. 
“Mr. Heath has again presented us with another charming work on a charming subject. 
. «So excellent is Mr. Heath’s word-painting of scenery, that we who have so frequently 
been over the same ground and lingered as he has on the same errand, feel ourselves trans- 
ported for the moment into the midst of the ferny paradise his pen so truthfully portrays. As 
a sample of the vivid description of scenery we give at random a passage from a chapter on 
‘Down a Combe to the Sea,’ scarcely knowing where to begin or where to end, so like the 
whole is the part. . . . So minute and exhaustive are the descriptions of all the species of 
British ferns, so careful and detailed are the directions for their culture, that we question 
whether the most inquiring mind could suggest a reasonable query on this topic and not be 
able to find it answered here... . Mr, Heath’s ‘Fern World’ will be a great acquisition to 
botanist’s library,” 
aes ee Public Opinion, 
“Tn the expanse of arid bookland stretching before the reviewer and yet to be traversed, 
even in the sunny August, he has found a spot containing a volume so fair and full of 
refreshing memories that he must make straightway towards it, leaving many a dry treatise 
and dull romance lying unnoticed in the deserted path of duty. . . . The teachings of Mr. 
Heath are not those of a man who is content to peer at the details of his subject through the 
spectacles of a savazzt, for he often looks over them with the gaze of a painter for a broader 
view, and then with the feelings of a poet describes it, Such a botanist is one to follow, if he 
be but accurate, and of this author's accuracy it is difficult to doubt... . Very gracefully 
written descriptions of the nature-favoured haunts where ferns are to be found, of the varied 
kinds and beauties of those fair blossomless plants, are enriched with marvellous coloured 
likenesses of each species; and those who have observed the delicate differences in the 
innumerable shades of green peculiar to ferns, will wonder at the fidelity with which they are 
here copied. All the specimens, from the tender Lady-fern to the sturdy Hart’s-tongue, 
seem to have been just gathered from some Devon dingle and laid between the leaves of the 
volume they adorn ” (Over.) 
