These bodies, drawing near the germ-cells in the course of their travels through the, to them, vast ocean of the water-drop, have been seen arrested in their progress and pa.s.sing down the funnel-shafts to the germs below--so fulfilling the purpose for which they were designed and their curious swimming powers were given.

The germs, so fertilized, become the underground stems of which I have yet to speak, putting forth roots and producing the tender, rolled-up buds which finally expand into the fronds whose grace and beauty we so much admire.

These germs, appearing on the prothallium or leaf-like expansion of the spore, are the true representatives of seeds, and the swimming bodies correspond to the pollen or fertilizing dust of flowers.

Thus we see that germs and means of fertilization are produced in the fern as truly as in higher plants, and that the simple agency whereby the one may reach and exert the needful action upon the other, is the _dew-drop_ resting on the prothallium from which they are developed.

Without the dew-drop or the rain-drop as a means of communication both must perish with their mission unfulfilled. This is, perhaps, one of the most singular instances ever to be found, of the mutual dependency of created things, or, to give different expression to the same idea, of the mode in which each link of the great network of existence is connected with every other.

Returning to the fern, whose "strange eventful history" we have traced so far,--the germ enlarges and becomes what is usually called the root, but is really an underground stem. The true roots are the little fibres--often black and wiry, looking more dead than alive--which descend from this.

The stem may be of two kinds--long, thin, and creeping, as in the common polypody, or short, stout, and upright, as in the common male fern.

At intervals along the creeping stem, or arranged more or less regularly around the crown of the erect stem, little buds appear, which eventually form the fronds which are the really conspicuous portion of the plant, and whose aspect is familiar to us all. The buds present a character of great interest and singularity. Instead of being simply folded together, as leaves generally are,--in all but two of our British kinds the fronds are rolled up after the fashion of a crosier or shepherd's crook. In divided fronds, the sections are rolled up first, and singly, and then the whole are rolled up again, as if forming but a single piece. The aspect of some of these young fronds--in the common bracken, for instance--with their many divisions all partially unrolled, is often highly curious.

But in this I am proceeding too far. The first crop of fronds, even in those kinds which when mature are most deeply cut, are usually very simple in form--almost or wholly undivided.

This fact is often a source of great confusion to beginners. I well remember two perplexities of the kind in which I was involved during the earlier season of my attention to this subject.

Growing upon a rock by the roadside, I found a small fern, more exquisitely beautiful than any I had seen before. I gathered and preserved it, but for many months was wholly puzzled as to its nature.

Fancies arose that I was the happy discoverer of a new species,--and what if Professor Lindley or Sir William Hooker were to name it after me--Asplenium, or Polystichum, or something else, Meredithii? That would be better than a peerage.

These were but fancies, and I was well pleased when further experience--for books helped me not at all--showed that it was a young plant of the common lady-fern. It was divided once only--into simple leaflets--while the fully-developed frond of the matured plant is one of the most highly subdivided our islands can produce.

When I began collecting ferns, I had not seen a specimen of the rare holly-fern, and it was pardonable in me on finding some fronds which evidently belonged to the shield fern genus, and were divided into spiny leaflets only, to refer them to this species and tell a friend that I had made a great discovery. But on going to the same plant a year later, my mistake was made plain, as the new fronds were much more divided, and showed the plant to be of the common kind, the p.r.i.c.kly shield-fern.

On the rocky sides of little Welsh and Highland rivers, in glens where the sunlight seldom enters, complete series of this fern in all its stages--from the tiny simple leaf to the deeply-cut and boldly-outlined frond of nearly three feet in length--may easily be obtained, and will beautifully ill.u.s.trate its varied and increasingly-divided forms.

Some fronds of course, as those of the graceful hart's-tongue, are undivided even at maturity, except in occasional instances in which, like creatures endowed with more sentient life, they become erratic, and show a disposition to pa.s.s beyond the ordinary limitations. Curious examples of tendency to a greater than even their proper large amount of subdivision are occasionally shown in specimens of the lady-fern, which become forked at the extremities not only of the fronds but of the leaflets also.

The manner in which the fronds divide into lobes, segments, leaflets, and so on, is of course largely dependent upon the character of the veining, which differs widely from that of the flowering plants. In these, the veins are either netted or parallel, but in ferns they are forked, each branch again forking, and so on outward to the margin. This is only partially true of the scale-fern, and not true at all of the adder's-tongue; but it is the case with all other of our native kinds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCALY SPLEENWORT OR "RUSTY BACK."]

Pa.s.sing now to the production of the spores, and so completing the cycle of a fern's existence,--these appear in cases which spring in some instances from leafless veins or central ribs, but mostly from the veins as they usually occur, and at the back or, in the bristle-fern and filmy-ferns, at the margin of the fronds. The cases grow in cl.u.s.ters which are termed sori, each of which is generally protected by a covering, though in the genus of the polypodies this is entirely absent, the cl.u.s.ters being fully exposed to the diversities of wind and weather.

In the protected kinds, the cover a.s.sumes various forms. The filmy-ferns have it as a tiny cup, enclosing the spore-cases. In the bladder-fern it is like a fairy helmet. The shield-ferns, as their name implies, produce it as a little shield, fastened by its centre. In the buckler-ferns it is kidney-shaped, in the spleenworts long and narrow, and so on. Some kinds can scarcely be credited with the formation of a real cover, but their sori are protected by the turned-down margins of the fronds. In a few sorts, separate fronds are provided for the production of the spores, and these mostly differ in shape from the ordinary or barren fronds.

The spore-cases are generally almost microscopic, flask-like in shape, and encircled by an elastic ring of peculiar structure, which pa.s.ses either from top to bottom like a parallel of longitude, or round the sides like the equator round the earth. The exact nature of this band,--whether its elasticity be due to the mechanical arrangement of its cells, which are narrower on the inner than on the outer side, and apparently filled with solid matter, or to a quality of its substance,--I am unable to determine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILSON'S FILMY-FERN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TUNBRIDGE FILMY-FERN.]

When the spores are fully ripe, and ready for dispersion, the band, which has. .h.i.therto been bent around them, springs open with great suddenness and force, tearing the enclosing membrane and casting them forth upon the breeze, to undergo in their turn all the changes we have traced, or, as must be the case with mult.i.tudes, such are the countless numbers in which they are produced, to perish, humanly speaking, with all the beautiful possibilities of their nature for ever lost.

The botanist is led away from care, not merely into holes and corners--

"Brimful d.y.k.es and marshes dank"--

but to glorious vales and to mountain tops, where fresh health-laden breezes play around him, and he can delight in scenes of grandeur and loveliness to a degree which only a true lover of nature knows.

A poet I have read gave sweet expression to thoughts and feelings which I have often shared, when he wrote thus:--

"Oh! G.o.d be praised for a home Begirt with beauty rare, A perfect home, where gentle thoughts Are trained 'mid scenes so fair;

"And where (G.o.d grant it so) the heart That loves a beauteous view, The while it grows in truth and taste May grow in goodness too.

"For 'tis my creed that part to part So clingeth in the soul, That whatsoe'er doth better one, That bettereth the whole.

"And whoso readeth nature's book, Widespread throughout the earth, Will something add unto his love Of wisdom and of worth."

Happy are those who can find relief from the worry and turmoil of business in the observation and study of the myriad forms of life which flourish upon the earth, or whose record is laid up within its rocks.

But blessed is he who, from the contemplation of objects so varied, wonderful, and beautiful, can with a full heart look upward to a G.o.d reconciled in Christ, and in reverential and loving worship exclaim, "My _Father_ made them all!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

On the "War-path."--Rabbit-shooting.--Flapper-shooting.-- Duck-shooting.--Wood-pigeons.--Life in an Oak-tree.-- Burying-beetles.--Lace-wing Fly.--Stag-beetle.--Hair-worm.

It was a curious sight to see the boys on the "war-path." Frank generally led the way, with his eyes fixed on the hedge or tree-tops.

Jimmy followed closely at his heels, and d.i.c.k brought up the rear. As their eyes were generally too much occupied in looking out for objects of interest, to take care of their feet, they lifted the latter up from the ground with an action like that of a thorough-bred colt, so as to avoid any obstacles in their path. While going along one day in this style, Frank said,

"I tell you what we have nearly forgotten, and that is to go flapper-shooting."

Flappers are young ducks only just able to fly, and in July it is great fun following them along the side of a d.y.k.e, the short flights of the young ones making them easy shots for a beginner.

"Let us go to-morrow," said Jimmy.

"You two shoot, and I will look on," said d.i.c.k, who cared very little for shooting.

d.i.c.k was not by any means an enthusiastic gunner, as the following anecdote will show.

He had taken the gun, saying that he was going to shoot rabbits by the Home Copse, a wood which belonged to Mr. Merivale. In a convenient spot the boys had fixed a hurdle close by a hedge-bank, and twined some brushwood through the bars. Between this and the hedge they used to take their seat, and watch for the rabbits coming out of their burrows in the evening. On a warm July evening d.i.c.k went to this spot alone, with a parting injunction from Frank not to shoot at the young ones, but to pick out the old bucks. Frank was busy with something or other, and Jimmy was away at Norwich. When Frank had finished what he was about he went in search of d.i.c.k. When he came to the edge of the field at the foot of which lay the wood, he saw numbers of rabbits skipping about close by d.i.c.k's shelter, and after waiting for some time he grew impatient, and wondered why d.i.c.k did not fire.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILD RABBITS.]

"He must have fallen asleep," he thought; and so with infinite care and cunning he crawled down the hedge-side, and came upon d.i.c.k from behind.

"d.i.c.k, why don't you shoot?" he said in a whisper.

"Hush!" said d.i.c.k, "they look so pretty, I don't like to disturb them.

Look at the young ones frisking about."

"Give me the gun," said Frank.

d.i.c.k pa.s.sed it to him through the hedge, and Frank, taking aim at two fine rabbits which happened to be in a line, shot them dead.