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in our own Ferny districts, or to selective raisings from these within 
the area of the British Isles. The hobby also embraces the charm 
of a definite object in country rambles at holiday times, forming 
an incentive to research in the most picturesque districts of Britain, 
the hills and dales, mountains and glens, breezy moorlands, shady 
lanes, and, in short, the thousand and one lovely spots in which 
Ferns revel, the delight of such wanderings being always enhanced 
by the chance of a good find and the consequent addition to one’s 
collection of a most interesting “ souvenir.” Many such places, un- 
happily, have been depleted of their ferny attractions by the raids 
of vandals of various kinds. The impecunious villager collects 
all the seedlings within easy walking distance, and disposes of them 
by advertisement ; the peripatetic tramp * lifts’ the larger Speci 
mens, and sometimes, on a wholesale scale, attacks a ferny resort, 
and, with the aid of horse and cart, leaves desolation behind him, 
finding an outlet for his literal “ spoil" in Spitalfields or Covent 
Garden, while a third grade is found in the heedless trippers who 
fill baskets and bags with the wayside Ferns as souvenirs, of which 
not one in a hundred probably survives subsequent neglect en 
route and at home. 
То these several types of vandals we fear we must add another. 
Once, in Scotland, we were informed of the habitat of a rare Fern, 
Cystopteris montana, we believe, and made a pilgrimage to the 
spot, but not a vestige of a fern could be found, and we were 
reliably informed that this was due to the fact that a Professor 
and a body of students had visited the place some few days pre- 
viously. In an American publication devoted to ferns, a corres- 
pondent proudly reported his discovery of an extremely rare species 
in the shape of one plant, to celebrate which he entirely denuded 
it of its fronds as herbarium specimens, and, not content with this, 
sent a friend there in the autumn, who depleted it again of the 
few it had thrown up in the interim, which, as every Fern-grower 
knows, was tantamount to its destruction. The Fern-hunter proper, 
on the other hand, would have carefully secured the prize, cultivated 
it, sown it, and, in that sensible way, would have secured not only 
its continued existence, but have provided a limitless amount of 
material for herbarium purposes as well. It would, indeed, be 
interesting to know how many rarities have found a grave in Ше 
herbarium cemeteries of the world, owing to this sort of unin- 
tended but thoughtless and culpable vandalism. 
Happily, of late years local laws have been put into force to 
mitigate these evils; but it is beyond a doubt that the most 
efficacious remedy would be a general appreciation of the fact 
that these common forms are greatly inferior compared with the 
beautiful varieties which they have yielded, and which alone are 
worthy of cultivation as pet plants. Since the reproach of “ van- 
dalism ” has been, perhaps more jocularly than seriously, hurled 




