Beauty of our mossy banks-Screw Wall Moss-Characters of s-Microscopic structure of ditto-How mosses develop from spores-Magnified structure of mosses-Male and female parts of ditto-Description of fructification of ditto- Structure of fruit of mosses-Lichens, their structure-The common Yellow Lichen -- Parasitic Fungi - Star-spored Fungus Bramble-leaf Brand - Meadow-sweet Brand- Cluster-cups-Maple Blight-Sphæria-Witches' Butter, or Nostoc-Polyporus-Description of ditto-Toadstools and Mushrooms-Agarics and Boleti-Morel-Fairy Rings- HALF-HOURS IN THE GREEN LANES. CHAPTER I. BY A TARN SIDE. HAT naturalist is there who does not know the treasures to be found in a common pond? Animal and vegetable, here are to be met with objects that will find a twelvemonth's work for the microscope. But even without having to employ that useful instrument, the young student may acquaint himself with the structure and habits of many a strange organism. Of course, it is to no purpose our recommending creatures like these unless you have a love for nature. But if you have-and we pity the man or woman who has not—you are in possession of a faculty of enjoyment that will remain after fortune, friends, health, and even youth have departed. The power to throw yourself on the bank of some lonely tarn or stream, and give yourself up to communion with the inhabitants of that little world, to let your sympathies go out towards B them, as Hawthorne's "Donelli" did, is a gift not to be despised! And it is surprising, if you are really interested in your fellow inhabitants of nature, how soon they seem to recognise the fact, and to familiarise themselves with your presence, as though they knew you had a kindred feeling for them. As you recline on the flower-covered bank, shortly you see the birds following their usual avocations, quarrelling and making love, as if an individual of the genus homo were not present. The butterflies flit about you, the bees hum busily, the dragon-flies skim the surface, and buzz against your very face. The fishes rise at the flies, or bound above the water in frolicsome sport. The water-beetles spin and dive, and the flies and gnats drum around you, whilst overhead the summer sun is shining out of an intensely blue sky, just flecked with dappled white clouds. You shut your eyes, and allow your ears to drink in the many voices of nature. Bird and insect, wind and tree and rustling grass, all contribute to it. There is not a discordant note. How wonderfully all seem to blend and lose themselves in the joint and harmonious chorus ! We are not speaking now of the feelings of the mere hunter or collector of specimens, of him who values them not unless they are rare, so that his cabinet may be enriched by their grotesquely dried forms, and his selfish vanity be fed by the admiring envy of his friends when he exhibits them. If the study of and communion with Nature leads to no higher feeling than this, we are afraid that, instead of doing good, it will only accelerate the harm which mankind are so fond of appropriating out of the most innocent of objects. But we are referring to the sentiments of a man who feels that all things have a right to live by the mere fact of their being in existence-who loves them, not only for the pure joy they give him in sharing their vitality, but because they are, with himself, objects of the same providential care. With such feelings "collecting" is a secondary matter-only resorted to that we may know and admire more of the objects themselves. Coleridge has exactly expressed the sentiment of all genuine naturalists "He prayeth most who loveth most All things, both great and small; We have never collected a flowering plant, insect, or egg, without feeling that if there were any other way of getting at the knowledge we seek, we should greatly prefer it. Life, however or wherever represented, is a sacred thing to the naturalist. The 'Loves of the Plants' are felt by him in a different way to that of which Dr. Darwin wrote. He knows that if a human mechanic could fabricate a small machine that should be able to fly, like the little gnat that has just settled on his hand, such a man would be lauded throughout the length and breadth of the land. Much more if he could place within it an internal apparatus for the development of an infinite number of machines like itself, and the power of providing for an offspring it will never see, Even then, it would be a mere machine, curious, nothing more. Why should we think less of the myriads of lifeforms because they are constructed by a Divine instead of a human Architect? Do their wonderful structure, instincts, and habits or numbers detract from the wisdom that formed them, or the love that so freely evolved them? Such have been a few of our thoughts as we have reclined, like a lazy poet, drinking in the mere joy of existence, and thanking God for being allowed even physical life! We have made our selection of a "tarn" in preference to a "pond "-although both words are frequently used synonymously-because the former is a pond of nature's own making, whereas the latter may be of man's. In this sense the word is used by our older writers. Holinshed, in his Chronicle,' says, "The Air, or Arre, riseth out of the lake, or tarne, south of Dombrooke, wherein, as I heare, is none other fish than red Trowt and Perch." A "tarn" may therefore be of immense age compared with a pond, which simply means an excavation cut in the ground in search of clay or mould, and into which, when deserted, the waters have been allowed to drain. It is true, that even in such places, and within a very short time, there will spring up, as by magic, or rather as if the creative force had been specially and locally mani |