i86 
NATURE NOTES 
species. The primrose and the male fern are more tolerant of 
London cultivation, though in its murky atmosphere and gas- 
saturated soil they can hardly be said to flourish, and, rather 
than increase, generally require frequent renewal. Thus, apart 
from, and antecedent to, all foolish and error-based political 
symbolism, the spring-tide glories of pale clustering blossoms 
and unrolling fronds have long led to a wholesale rooting-up of 
these species in the neighbourhood, not only of London, but also 
of our other large cities, by dealers who find it cheaper to steal 
their wares ready grown. The hedgerows round Merstham and 
Horley, in Surrey, only a few years ago used to be filled with 
primroses, but travelling past these places — about twenty miles 
from the metropolis — this spring I did not see one. It is, in 
fact, almost wholly in strictly-watched game-preserves that the 
primrose survives anywhere near London. The case of our ferns 
is, however, even more serious, since there are no specific limits 
to the ambitions of that amateur gardener, and consequently 
the trade collector greedily tears up anything besides Filix-mas — 
except, perhaps, bracken — in the hopes of a higher price. I 
have seen in less than fifty years the disappearance of the 
English maiden-hair [Asplenium Trichomanes) and the harts- 
tongue from much at least of the country round London ; and 
now-a-days cheap and fast railway accommodation enables the 
depredators to extend the field of their operations to the more 
prolific, because moister, regions of the West of England. It is 
true that the fern wealth of Devon, Hereford or West Gloucester 
could better survive such depredations than our south-eastern 
area, which is naturally less favourable to fern growth ; but this 
is only a question of degree and of time, and it must be borne in 
mind that the men who range so far afield from London as the 
Devonshire lanes look to recoup themselves for their railway 
fares by the wholesale scale of their operations. In these cases, 
moreover, the actual collectors are merely employes of Covent 
Garden dealers. When we read of three men and a horse and 
trap carting away ten sacks of ferns each week for three weeks 
in succession, we can understand that a county that depends 
largely on the attractions of its fern-grown lanes for the tourist is 
led to take action in its own defence. In the Lake district and 
elsewhere men who, in some cases at least, do not cultivate 
ferns, constantly advertise that they are prepared to supply at a 
small price collections of different native species. 
There would seem at first sight little harm in a tourist taking 
home a root as a souvenir of his holiday, which he hopes he 
may succeed in growing in his garden. Unfortunately, how- 
ever, the tourist has often learnt from the local guide-book what 
is the special rarity of the district, and the greed of possession 
(regardless of the probable difficulty of cultivation and of the 
fact that mere rarity makes a plant neither more beautiful nor 
more ' instructive) leads him to carry away not one but many 
roots, or to buy from ignorant and reckless peasant-collectors 
