60 



A TEEN BOOK FOR EYEBTBODT. 



seed which was invisible, by an extraordinary process of 

 reasoning concluded that they who possessed the secret 

 of wearing this seed about them would becoaie invisible, 

 a superstition which was ridiculed by Shakespeare. Even 

 in the time of Addison the notion was not altogether ex- 

 ploded, for in the " Tatler " he laughs at a doctor who was 

 arrived at the knowledge of the green and red dragon, and 

 had discovered the female fern-seed. Hudibras also alludes 

 to the same belief : 



"That spring-like fern, that insect weed. 

 Equivocally without seed." 



Indeed, there are numerous allusions in older writers of 

 invisibility conferred by ferns, as in an ancient tract of the 

 time of Queen Elizabeth : ''I thinke the mad slave hath 

 tasted on a ferne-stalke, that he walkes so invisible." A 

 little dash of superstition with regard to ferns lingers 

 still with the working population in out-of-the-way rural 

 districts. 



MALE PEEN.* 



One of the commonest and most robust of large ferns 

 found in this country. The root-stock is as thick as one's 

 arm, and produces at its summit the tufts of feathery 

 fronds 2 or 3 feet long, with a scaly foot-stalk, and the 

 outline of the leafy portion spear-shaped. The branches or 

 leaflets are subdivided throughout their entire length into 

 long narrow lobes, which are distinct from each other 

 near the leaf-stalk, but not being cut down entirely to the 

 mid-rib towards the apex of the leaflets, the lobes are con- 

 nected with each other at their base at the outer extremity 

 of the leaflets. The tufts of spore-cases are produced 

 freely on the back of the fronds, at the lower end of the 

 leaflets, the outer portion being commonly barren. (Plate 



III., fig. 1.) 



It would be absurd to attempt giving localities for this 

 fern, which is common everywhere in sheltered situations. 

 Perhaps it deserves to be considered the commonest of 

 the tufted species found in this country. 



*Lastrea filix'tnas, PjaESL. 



