116 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
between that state and our own. Some very fair specimens have 
been obtained in Concord, not far from Thoreau’s favorite Walden 
woods. At East Windsor Hill, Conn., at one time abundant sup- 
plies were obtained for decorative purposes, but so careless were 
the people who sought this dainty “vine” that the Legislature 
passed an act forbidding its heedless and wanton extermination. 
The name Lygodium is from the Greek signifying flexile or flexible; 
palmatum suggests the resemblance of the outlines of the fronds 
to an outspread hand. Success in transplanting the ‘Climbing 
Fern” depends much upon the care exercised to obtain good roots. 
Having these, little complaint will be made of the difficulty at- 
tending the culture of one of Nature’s daintiest eccentricities. — 
Gero. E. Emery. 
Parasitic Funer iy tHE Human Ear. —In the “ Bulletin de la 
Société Imperialé des Naturalistes de Moscou” for 1870, No. 1, 
just received, is a paper by Dr. Karsten on the parasitic fungi 
found in the human ear, accompanied with beautiful illustrations. 
The author confirms the statements of Hallier and other previous 
observers, that when the spores of these parasitic fungi are sown 
elsewhere, the plants which result from them assume very different 
forms, according as the substance on which they are sown is rich 
or poor in material for nutrition; and that fungi described as dis- 
tinct species, or even as belonging to different genera, are merely 
different genetic forms of the same plant.—A. W. B. 
Rep Snow 1x -Wasnincton Terrrrrory.—In the summer of 
1858, when employed on the survey of the boundary between the 
Territories of the United States and those of Great Britain (the 
49th parallel of north latitude), I ascended the main range of the 
Cascade Mountains, a little south of the line and at an elevation 
of about 6500 feet. While looking for a camping place, one of 
my men, with an expression of horror, brought me a han 
red snow which he had picked up on a higher neighboring point, 
and asked what it was. His disgust can be imagined when 
inquiring where he had obtained it, I eat it. Accompanying him 
back I found that the color was, so to speak, “sheeted” over a 
considerable space on the northern side of a point of rocks. AS 
it lay in place, it was of a pink color, beautifully contrasting with 
the white bank on which it lay. Compressing it in the hand, it 
gave a bloody tint to the water which oozed from it. The taste 
