90 HANDY BOOK 01'' 
the weight and blotting-paper, lest any degree of humidity 
should require a change of paper. This, however, rarely 
occurs, except in the case of the Hart's-tongue, a water- 
loving fern, or that of the Moonwort. Replace the weight, 
and let your specimens remain in a dry place for a month or 
six weeks, when they may be safely removed to the pages of 
your fern-book, upon which it is desirable to tack them 
with a fine needle and silk or thread, in two or three places, 
according to the size of the fern. Do not forget to set down 
the places where grew your specimens, and any historic or 
biographic memoranda that can be comprised in a few lines. 
If, also, you meet with poetry befitting the ferns or their 
localities, such quotations will render your book still more 
interesting. 
When the stems of the ferns are unusually thick, we have 
found it desirable to place on either side folded sheets of 
blotting-paper, so that the finer portions of the fronds may 
sustain an equal pressure. 
SEPTEMBER. 
How beautiful are ripening fields of grain, 
Varying the landscape. And how fair the scene 
Of bill and dale, and woodland spreading wide ; 
"With cottage homes, and village fanes, that lift 
Their spires to heaven. 
WHY is it that the Brake-fern grows profusely in some 
parts of Kent, whilst almost every other fern is wanting P 
that banks and hedgerows in the neighbourhood of Syden- 
ham, especially, are profusely feathered with this interesting 
species ? We have spoken elsewhere concerning the Pteris 
aquilina of its wide diffusion, and association with memo- 
rial sites and ruins; but nowhere have we seen it more 
