84 HANDY BOOK OP 
in the aspect of this unassuming fern. Perhaps we love it 
the more because of gathering it in our youth, on many a 
summer holiday, from an old wall at Totnels, near Pains- 
wick, Gloucestershire. We knew little of rocks and xuins 
then ; but a legend of deep interest was associated with that 
lichen-covered wall, and its contiguous mansion, and it 
threw around the whole a kind o'f romance which vividly 
affected our young imaginations. 
Since then, we have gathered the same fern in widely 
different localities, but never without a feeling somewhat 
akin to melancholy : for who can look back unmoved on the 
haunts of childhood ; and what powerful awakings up of 
past realities are often elicited by the simplest fern or 
flower ! 
Ye green ferns ani flowers, 
Beloved in past hours, 
Ere the young heart hud yielded its gladness ; 
We gaze on you still, 
By the gush of the rill, 
In the depth of our spirit's lone sadness. 
Thus sung a mournful poet ; but let us rather? rejoice in 
the beauties and wonders of creation ; and if, perchance, 
while looking at some plant or flower, such asi the eager 
hand of childhood gathered in its gladness, and tendered as 
a tribute of its love to those whom now the earth owns not, 
their freshness and up-springing may well remind us of that 
glorious morning when parted ones shall meet again, and 
this " mortal shall put on immortality." 
Unlike the Bristle-fern, which is locally res'iricted, the 
fern that gave rise to this digression very genei ally occurs 
in the south-western counties of England and .Ireland, al- 
though of rare occurrence in the midland ai i northern 
counties ; and in Scotland is to be met with 01 ly at Dun- 
donald, near Paisley, and at the carse of Gowri i, according 
to the testimony of Dr. Young, and Mr. Jam 33 Macnab, 
