FERNS AND FEEN-HUNTIND. 
13 
since it is difficult, until one such experience has been made, 
to believe that such a reward can really be reaped. It need 
not be imagined that very unfrequented places must be visited, 
though of course there is the better chance. Most of our 
own finds, however, have been espied by the high-road side, 
either in the hedges or in the stone dykes. Seedlings, espe- 
cially in such localities, may yield a prize, since it must not 
be forgotten that Nature is always at work, and that this 
year’s crop is as likely to afford varieties as that of any 
previous year. Hence, where there are plenty of plants, there 
is always a chance for the eye that is keen enough, and the 
experience which is ripe enough to enable it to appreciate 
what it sees. 
As a rule, the abnormal forms are found singly, the most 
careful search for similar forms in the same locality leading 
but to negative results. This is rendered the more remark- 
able by the fact that the specimens are, as often as not, 
well-established fertile plants, which have probably scattered 
their millions upon millions of spores about the neighbour- 
hood for years, which spores, under cultivation, yield plants 
all true to the parent type. In the case of very heavily- 
crested forms, this may be accounted for by the greater size 
and vigour of the normal forms, which cause the young seed- 
lings, should they appear, to be overgrown and crowded out 
of existence; hence, the interstices of stone dykes and walls, 
and similar places, are more likely to reward the searcher 
than places where the plants can grow with greater freedom. 
On the other hand, it occasionally happens that an abnormal 
form will be found to have established itself in great numbers, 
even to the exclusion of the normal. Instances are also on 
record where a whole laneful of crested forms has been 
found. There is an entire hillside in Westmoreland covered 
by a most extraordinary form of Bracken, apparently so 
heavily crested that the plants look like bunches of grapes 
hanging down the slope. Abnormal forms of Hartstongue 
have also been found occupying a large area, to which, how- 
ever, they were confined. Considering the absolutely micro- 
scopic size of the spores of Ferns, the incredible numbers 
