up the bases of the big water elms in the swamps. The delicate
branchlets of the beautiful fern moss are recompense for a day's
search, and the bright yellow-green Schreber's Hypnum, with its red
stems, is a rich rug for reluctant feet. The moist rocks down which
the water trickles into the ravine below are stained green and orange
by the glossy Entodon. These patient mosses cover wounds in the
landscape gently as tender thoughts soothe aching voids left by the
loss of those we love. They lead us into the most entrancing bits of
the woodland scenery--shaded rills, flowing springs, dashing cascades,
fairy glens, and among the castellated rocks of the dark ravines.
Their parts are so exquisitely perfect, almost they persuade the
nature-lover to degenerate into a mere naturalist, walking through the
woods seeing nothing but sporophytes through his lens, just as a rare
book sometimes causes the bibliophile to become a bibliomaniac,
reading nothing but catalogues. It is a credit to be a bibliomaniac
provided one is a bibliophile as well. And the best moss naturalists
are they whose hearts respond to the enthusiasm in Ruskin's closing
paragraphs of _Leaves Motionless_.

* * * * *

The yielding odorous soil is promiseful after its stubborn hardness of
winter months and we watch it eagerly for the first herbaceous growth.
Often this is one of the fern allies, the field horsetail. The
appearance of its warm, mushroom-colored, fertile stems is one of the
first signs of returning spring, and its earliest stems are found in
dry sandy places. The buds containing its fruiting cones have long
been all complete, waiting for the first warm day, and when the start
is finally made the tubered rootstocks, full of nutriment, send up the
slender stem at the rate of two inches a day.