Making a Fern Case.—Ferns.—Harvest Mouse.—Mole.—Ladybird.—Grasses.

From ten till four the boys were engaged with Mr. Meredith, but they had a holiday on Saturday, and by rising early they could gain so many of the fairest and most beautiful hours of the day that lessons seemed but an interval between a long morning and a long afternoon. They thus made plenty of time for their numerous occupations.

Mary said to Jimmy one day, "Will you make me a fern-case? Frank has so many things to do. I have been promised a lot of ferns from Devonshire. A friend of mine will send them to me by post, and I should so like to have a nice little fernery for my bedroom window."

Jimmy gladly promised to make one for her, and Dick, who would have liked to have had the commission himself, volunteered to help him. They first of all made a strong deal box, about two feet six inches long, and one foot six inches broad, and six inches deep. This was lined carefully with sheet lead, which was to make it perfectly water-tight. They then made a wooden framework, with a pointed roof, to fit on the top of it. This they glazed with ordinary window-glass, and painted all the wood-work black. It was now ready for the soil. First they put a layer, about two inches deep, of broken sandstone, in order to ensure perfect drainage, and mixed with this were some lumps of charcoal to keep it pure. Then they filled up the box with earth, mixed in the proportions following:—one-third part of garden mould, one-third part of sand, and one-third part of peaty earth, with an admixture of dead leaves. In the centre of the rockery they built up a framework of curiously water-worn flints, and then they carried the affair in triumph to Mary's room, where they planted the ferns she had received from her friend—glossy, whole-leaved hart's-tongues, delicate, black-stemmed maiden-hair, ladder-like polypodies and blechnums, feathery lady-ferns, light green and branching oak-ferns, and many another species, which, notwithstanding their removal from the Devonshire lanes, grew and flourished in Mary's fern-case, and soon became a sight most pleasant to the eye.

To anyone fond of ferns nothing can be more interesting than a fern-case. Nearly all ferns grow well in them, if they are properly attended to. Whenever the soil becomes dry on the surface, they should be well watered, and this should not be done too often, or it will encourage the growth of mould. The moisture will evaporate and condense on the side of the glass, and run down again to the earth, so that there is very little waste. The plants thus create an atmosphere of their own, and will thrive in it wonderfully.

One day it was so intensely hot that it was impossible to do anything but lie in the shade. The boys had bathed twice, and the deck planks of the yacht were so burning hot that they could with difficulty stand upon them. They sought a shady corner of the paddock, and there underneath a tall hedge and the shade of an oak they lay, and talked, and read. Frank was teasing Dick with a piece of grass, and to escape him, Dick got up and sat on a rail in the hedge which separated them from the next field, which was a corn-field. This quietly gave way, and Dick rolled into the next field, and lay among the corn quite happy and contented. Suddenly he called out—

"Come and look at this nest in the corn-stalks! It can't be a bird's. What is it?"

Frank and Jimmy went through the gap and examined it.

"It is the nest of a harvest mouse," said Frank, "and there are half a dozen naked little mice inside."

The harvest mouse is the smallest of British animals. Unlike its relatives, it builds its nest in the stalks of grass or corn at a little distance from the ground. The nest is globular in shape, made of woven grass, and has a small entrance like that of a wren's.

"And here is a mole-trap," said Jimmy, "with a mole in it. What smooth glossy fur it has! It will set whichever way you rub it."

"Yes; and don't you see the use of that. It can run backwards or forwards along its narrow burrows with the greatest ease. It could not do that if the fur had a right and a wrong way."

"Can it see?" asked Jimmy, pointing to the tiny black specks which represented its eyes.

"Oh yes. Not very well, I dare say; but well enough for its own purposes. It can run along its passages at a great speed, as people have found out by putting straws at intervals along them, and then startling the mole at one end and watching the straws as they were thrown down."

During the autumn and winter the mole resides in a fortress, often at short distances from the burrow where it nests. This fortress is always placed in a position of safety, and is of a most complex construction. It is a hillock, containing two or three tiers of galleries with connecting passages, and from the central chamber it has passages, or rows, extending in different directions.

The boys returned to their couches in the long grass in the shade, and Frank was soon too sleepy to tease, but lay on the broad of his back, looking up at the blue sky through the interstices of the oak branches. Dick was studying the movements of a ladybird with red back and black spots, which was crawling up a grass-stem, and wondering how such a pretty creature could eat a green juicy aphis, as it has a habit of doing. Jimmy was turning over the pages of his book, and looking out the plates of flowers, and comparing them with some he had gathered. He was rather bewildered and somewhat discouraged at the immensity of the study he had undertaken. No sooner did he learn the name of a flower than it was driven from his head by that of another, and having attempted to do too much in the beginning, he had got into a pretty state of confusion. He had given up the idea of keeping pace with naming all the beautiful flowers he had found. He gathered and dried them, and left to the winter evenings the task of arranging and naming them.

"I say," called out Frank, "around my face there are at least seven different kinds of grasses. Can you name them, Jimmy?—and how many different kinds of grasses are there?"

"I can name nothing," said Jimmy dolefully, "but I will look it up in my book and tell you. Here it is, but their name seems legion. You must look at them for yourself. The plates are very beautiful, but the quaking grass, of which there is any quantity just by your head, is the prettiest."

"They seem as pretty as ferns," said Frank. "I must learn something more about them."

A day or two after this Mr. Meredith said to them, when they had assembled at his house in the morning:

"Now, boys, from something a little bird has whispered to me, I think you stand in need of a little punishment, and I therefore mean to give you a lesson. You are by far too desultory in your study of natural history. You attempt to do too much, and so you only obtain a superficial knowledge, instead of the thorough and practical one you ought to have. You are trying to reach a goal before you have fairly started from the toe-line. I allude more especially now to botanical matters, because I know most about them, and that is all I can help you in. Therefore you will be kind enough to translate into Latin this Essay which I have written on the Life of a Fern."

"That is anything but a punishment, sir," said Frank, laughing.

The boys set to work with great zest at their novel lesson. I set the English of it out in the next chapter, and I particularly request my young readers to read every word of it.