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are excellent for their special purpose. The ferns are repre- 

 sented with much delicacy and truth.' And ihen he says: 'You 

 would render a considerable service to the study of botany if 

 you drew other plants besides ferns, in the same manner.' This 

 last paragraph is hardly practical. The field is too wide. I 

 have no doubt but what it will be done some day, because I do 

 believe this is the only way to teach botany— at least to make it 

 popular. I intend confining myself to ferns, and if I have my 

 health, I have no doubt but what I will have an etching of every 

 fern indigenous to North America. 



" Let me hear from you at your leisure. I thank you for the 

 catalogue, and especially for taking an interest in my work. 



" Yours respectfully, 



"John Williamson." 



ANOTHER LOCALITY FOR SCHIZ^EA. 



A SHORT time since, a friend who is botanically inclined, 

 though she refuses to be called a botanist, wrote me of her 

 great joy in accidentally finding the Schizaea growing in 

 Lakewood, New Jersey, about a mile and a half from the village. 

 I begged permission to quote a few sentences from her letter. 



She says: "It was growing on a narrow, open stretch of bog, 

 in patches of white sand. The bog lies quite near a ridge of 

 higher ground, with sandy soil and pines. I was alone, and 

 stooping on my knees to pick a very beautiful spray of blooming 

 Pyxie, when suddenly there brushed against my hand, and 

 flashed before my eyes, the blessed brown fronds. Yes, there I 

 was, right in the midst of quite a generous colony of Schizaea 

 with its brown, tiny heads among tufts of grasses, sedges, mosses, 

 Lycopodiums, sundews and the Pyxie. Close by, on the side 

 where the pine woods reached down to the bog, cranberry vines 

 and arbutus crept close to the little fern ; while on the other side, 

 in the swamp, were ferns, and later on, Pogonias and Calopo- 

 gons." 



It is undoubtedly true that this little fern, which is almost in- 

 visible to the naked eye, ma)' yet be found in many places by 

 careful searching, or even by accident, as in the case I have 

 quoted, but I imagine few of these fortunate discoverers will re- 

 veal the localities with much accuracy of detail. Such knowledge 

 will be reserved for the few; the very elect. — Emily Hitchcock 

 Terry. 



