INTRODUCTION. 
the best materials for the construction of more general 
works, I have attempted, in the following pages, to give 
such a history of our British Ferns as may hereafter prove 
valuable to the general writer on Botany, while it more 
immediately addresses itself to a numerous class of readers, 
who neither contemplate the perpetration of authorship 
nor trouble themselves greatly about scientific Botany, but 
love Ferns because they are beautiful, and because they 
give zest and interest to many a ramble in the country ; 
