How to know the ferns

"The cheerful community of the polypody" From a photograph by Miss Madeline Smith.	[Frontispiece]
Page
New York Fern	[xvi]
"The greatest charm the ferns possess is that of their surroundings" From a photograph by Mr. Augustus Pruyn.	[12]
Fiddleheads	[18]
Fragile Bladder Fern	[19]
Crested Shield Fern	[20]
Purple Cliff Brake	[22]
Ternate Grape Fern	[24]
Evergreen Wood Fern	[27]
Sensitive Fern	[55]
Cinnamon Fern	[60]
Royal Fern	[68]
Interrupted Fern	[74]
Climbing Fern	[75]
Rattlesnake Fern	[80]
Slender Cliff Brake	[89]
"The unpromising wall of rock which rose beside us" From a photograph by Miss Ledyard.	[94]
More compound frond of Purple Cliff Brake	[95]
Christmas Fern	[97]
Narrow-leaved Spleenwort	[98]
Brake	[106]
Maidenhair	[110]
Mountain Spleenwort	[130]
Mountain Spleenwort	[132]
"In the shaded crevices of a cliff" From a photograph by Miss Madeline Smith.	[132]
Maidenhair Spleenwort	[137]
Walking Leaf	[146]
"We fairly gloated over the quaint little plants" From a photograph by Miss Ledyard.	[148]
Hart's Tongue	[151]
Marsh Fern	[162]
"Like the plumes of departing Summer" From a photograph by Miss Madeline Smith.	[178]
Common Polypody	[184]
Long Beech Fern	[187]
Oak Fern	[191]
Bulblet Bladder Fern	[194]

New York Fern

[FERNS AS A HOBBY]

I think it is Charles Lamb who says that every man should have a hobby, if it be nothing better than collecting strings. A man with a hobby turns to account the spare moments. A holiday is a delight instead of a bore to a man with a hobby. Thrown out of his usual occupations on a holiday, the average man is at a loss for employment. Provided his neighbors are in the same fix, he can play cards. But there are hobbies and hobbies. As an occasional relaxation, for example, nothing can be said against card-playing. But as a hobby it is not much better than "collecting strings." It is neither broadening mentally nor invigorating physically, and it closes the door upon other interests which are both. I remember that once, on a long sea-voyage, I envied certain of my fellow-passengers who found amusement in cards when the conditions were such as to make almost any other occupation out of the question. But when finally the ship's course lay along a strange coast, winding among unfamiliar islands, by shores luxuriant with tropical vegetation and sprinkled with strange settlements, all affording delight to the eye and interest to the mind, these players who had come abroad solely for instruction and pleasure could not be enticed from their tables, and I thanked my stars that I had not fallen under the stultifying sway of cards. Much the same gratitude is aroused when I see men and women spending precious summer days indoors over the card-table when they might be breathing the fragrant, life-giving air, and rejoicing in the beauty and interest of the woods and fields.