PERNS OP GREAT BRITAIN. 131 



Of mad delight, they drop their spoils and bound 

 Among the holly clumps and broken ground, 

 Racing full speed, and startling in the rush 

 The fell-fares and the speckled missel-thrush 

 Out of their glossy covert. But when now 

 Their cheeks were flushed, and over each hot brow 

 Under the feathered hats of the sweet pair 

 In blinding masses showered the golden hair, 

 Then Iseult called them to her." 



Very pretty ornaments were, in former days, made of 

 tlie club-moss for summer stoves, and Englisti ladies 

 seem to have worn it occasionally as a head-dress. 

 Gerarde says, " Some have made hatbands, girdles, and 

 also bands to tie such things as they have before 

 gathered, for the which purpose it most fitly serveth." 

 His description of the plant is very graphic : " Some 

 pieces thereof are six or eight feet long, consisting, as it 

 were, of many hairy leaves, set upon a tough string, 

 very close couched, and compact together ; from which 

 are also sent forth certaine other branches, like the 

 first; in sundrie places there be sent dovrae fine Httle 

 strings, which serve instead of roots, wherewith it is 

 fastened to the upper part of the earth, and taketh hold 

 likewise upon such things as grow next unto it. There 

 spring also from the branches bare and -naked stalks, on 

 which grow certaine eares, as it were, like the catkins or 

 blowings of the hasell-tree, in shape like a little club, or 

 the reed-mace, saving that it is much lesser, and of a 

 yellowish-white colour, very much resembhng the clawe 

 of a wolfe ; whereof it hath its name." He adds, how- 

 ever, that the "knobby catkins are altogether barren, 

 and bring forth neither seede nor flowre." 



