22 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
are acting; to him its charms are agencies and 
influences acting on his heart and mingling with 
‘his life. The sportsman in search of game 
frequently wanders into regions that seem primeval 
in their solitude, and where “human foot has 
ne’er or rarely been ;” but so absorbing is the pur- 
suit in which he is engaged, that he seldom pauses 
to watch the features of the surrounding scenery, 
or to notice combinations of objects and effects 
of light and shade which nature never displays 
except in such unfrequented spots. But to the 
cryptogamist, on the other hand, these very scenes 
of Nature lend a nameless charm and interest to 
the lowly plants he gathers, and are ever after 
indelibly associated with them in his memory, and 
are renewed every time he witnesses their faded 
remains. Hardly a moment passes over the 
solitary collector amid such secluded scenes, 
without some grand effect being produced in the 
surrounding landscape, or in the appearance of 
the sky above him; some wonderful transforma- 
tion of Nature, as though the spot where he stands 
were her tiring-room, and she were trying on robe 
after robe to see which became her best ; some 
striking incident, which might well inspire him 
with the wish to catch the happy moment, and 
give it a permanent existence. Such are the 
simple, refining, and enduring pleasures which the 
