as if a hare was thrusting out its paw there.
This is an interesting plant, being one of the
earliest foreign ferns introduced (from Madeira,
in 1699) to this country. It represents, on a
small scale, a style of growth of which the
Tartarian Lamb, Cibotium barometz, is a
celebrated example. "Among the King of
Denmark's Rarities is to be seen the skin of the
Lamb-plant, which one cannot distinguish from
the skin of an ordinary lamb. It grows in Muscovy,
and changes its place in growing, and wheresoever
it turns the grass withers. The wolf is the
only beast that will feed upon it, and it is used
as a bait to catch him. The people use this
skin for lining of their vests, and they call it
Boranez, that is, a Lamb." * These stories told
about it to early travellers led them to describe
it as animal with flesh and blood, but fixed to
one position from which it never moves. In
some species of Cibotium, the quantity of silky
hairs is so great that in the Sandwich Islands it
is collected, and ship-loads of it sent to
California and Australia for stuffing cushions,
beds, and the like. The Barometz, Mr Smith tells
us, is of easy cultivation. If placed on soil
slightly raised, a few years' growth will produce
very good specimens of the "Lamb."

* The Wonders of Nature in all Parts of the
World.

The Hare's-foot is one of those plants which
will take their ease at certain periods. Mine
was planted at a time when it knew it had a
right to a holiday; and, do all I could, it would
not stir. So I put it on one side and forgot it.
By-and-by, wanting a flower-pot for something,
I took this, and was going to empty it, but was
prevented by finding my Hare's-foot starting.
It was promoted forthwith to the window-sill,
and will, one of these days, make a respectable
figure; but the rate of its progress, for the
present, suits the paw of the tortoise rather
than the foot of the hare. Somebody lately
inquired of the Gardeners' Chronicle how to make
a stubborn bit of hare's-foot grow. It retained
all its vitality, but would show no signs of life.
My private recommendation to him is, "Be in
no hurry: have patience; wait."

My third trial-scrap was, I think, a morsel
of Asplenium adiantoides, or Colensoi, a free-
habited individual from New Zealand, one of
the ferns whose rootstocks produce side-
shoots,which may be readily separated with a
knife and so employed for propagation. My bit,
pining after its beloved parent, did not do much
good at first; but when once it got firm possession
of the pot, by petting, it grew and grew until its
spreading, wedge-shaped, much-divided fronds
have become the admiration of all beholders.
And it has already given me a sidecrown or
two wherewith to make other fern-growers
happy.

Years ago I was presented; as a rarity, with a
plant of Adiantum Capillus-Veneris, the True
Maidenhair Fern, from Cornwall, out of some
sea-side cavern. It was, I was told, difficult and
delicate, averse to light and air—the only accurate
part of which information is that, although
a native plant, it cannot stand frost. Treated like
a succulent (and sometimes forgotten) in a
warm and dry secluded corner, it gradually
pined away and disappeared. I had not yet
read in Moore's Handbook, nor observed for
myself, that "Ferns are natural hygrometers,
their occurrence in a state of luxuriance being
a certain indication that the locality is moist,
either atmospherically or terrestrially, or both.
The degree of luxuriance attained by them at
any spot is a tolerable index of the degree of
moisture of that spot, and the presence of these
plants in any abundance is generally to be taken
as evidence of abundant moisture."

Not long since, travelling along the famous
Corniche, or Cornice, which is the road from
Genoa to Nice, I saw, on a wall-top, the charming
Ceterach officinarum, or Common Scaly
Spleenwort (not so very common), and, on a
sunny rock, the Maidenhair of brightest green,
looking like a dryad's sable tresses frizzled into
verdigris curls. The diligence would not stop
to allow me to botanise, so the next day's
journey was performed on foot. Both those
gems rewarded me by their capture—the
Maidenhair with the secret of growing it.
There it was, luxuriating on the face of a rock,
exposed to the blaze of Mediterranean sunshine,
but with its roots continually bathed by the
trickling of a thread of water.

A few plants of this, torn up by the hair of
their head and roughly brought home in a
napkin kept moist, looked wretched enough,
not to say done for, on arriving at their
journey's end. Nevertheless, planted in a pot
with a saucer to it always containing water and
set in the sun, they sent up, first, some tiny
fronds, then stronger ones, until they became,
and have continued ever since, as vigorous as
in their native habitat. They now exemplify
the accuracy of Moore's remark, that this most
delicate and graceful fern, which has the
additional merit of being evergreen, is dispersed,
though "somewhat varying in form," over the
middle and south of Europe. They also confirm
his observation, "Notwithstanding that, for many
ferns, shade is an indispensable requisite,
yet it must be held to be far less important
generally than either moisture or shelter. Some
ferns—both of those which grow naturally on
dry rocks and of those which occur in situations
where their roots are constantly moistened—
even prefer exposure to the sun." And even
shadow-born and dusk-dwelling ferns, like certain
other higher organisms, manifest a craving
for what is not good for them. They thrive
best in the shade; it suits their constitution;
and yet they stretch out their fronds to catch
what gleam of sunshine they may.

Uneducated and unbotanical persons are
readily led to take an interest in ferns. When
once they come to know them, they wonder
greatly that they had not before remarked their
variety and beauty. "I have seen them on my
way going backwards and forwards, but I took
them for weeds and thought they were all alike."
To which you reply that, though there is a
strong family likeness, every like is not the