104 NATURE) STUDY. 
little white reindeer found it to be on the ‘ ‘ sun side of the 
rock.” 
My desire to have the new form of fern life to grace a 
city garden, and my attempt to uproot it in any mass, 
proved nearly futile, but I finally succeeded in extricating 
a few pieces of the stout, braided root-st*alk, so bare and 
torn of rootlets that I felt sure it would never thrive again. 
But in spite of doubt, and on account of love, some 
things do grow, and so did the Ostrich fern in our “wild 
garden,” slowly but constantly gaining ground, until, from 
three or four points on the creeping stalk there appeared 
tufts of sterile leaves, though no fertile ones were pro¬ 
duced for years after its transplantation, and never in 
abundance. 
Every spring we watch the graceful stems come forth 
and the pinnae unroll their tight little spirals from the mid¬ 
rib outward, a process requiring days before the fern can 
hold its head erect and tower above its companions, and 
we rejoice that the miracle of beauty is being wrought 
again under our own eaves, as when this noble fern flour¬ 
ished in the old Deering pasture, surrounded by God’s pure 
air and open country where the birds sang and the sheep 
played over the wall. 
