In many respects the plants and animals of the coal differ much from forms now living. It is probable that the greater part of them are even of different groups or families from the existing ones. But the ferns at least show strong traces of affinity. Here and there we meet with the young fern-leaves coiled up as they now lie on the heather, ready to unfold on the return of spring. We all know these “Bishops' crooks” that nestle in the bottom of the fern-baskets; and when I saw a grand specimen in Mrs. Stackhouse Acton's cabinet (it now graces our museum in Jermyn Street), with the delicate coil of pinnæ, every leaflet in its place, I almost leaped for joy. It was from the Le Botwood coal-field. There is one figured in this work, vol. iii, p. 460 (but the finder has not yet been told, I think, what his fossil is): it is from South Wales, and a beautiful specimen.

Our space was too crowded last month to give the necessary figures of the ferns; and it is but limited now. The leaves or fronds of the delicate Sphenopteris, mentioned p. 101, are very abundant. There are a number of species. S. elegans, S. crassa, and especially S. affinis occur in the lower coals, beneath the mountain limestone of Scotland;—S. artemisiœfolia, S. Honinghausi, S. linearis, S. trifoliata, are all characteristic of our upper coals, and the two last are found in France and Germany.