I observed, and shot a weasel, or a mungoose to-day, whilst it was employed feeding on the cast away skin of a goat or sheep, so that some of these creatures evidently feed occasionally on carrion, although they are said to live upon live prey.

CHAPTER XIX.

On the Reproductive Organs of Acotyledonous plants.

17th.—­Fine weather, the sun daily increasing in power, is having a remarkable effect on the peculiar spring vegetation, but this is not sufficiently developed to bring in the corresponding birds and insects.  Gypaetos is common now about the dead camels.

On the low east ridge, along the path that leads over the river, ruins of ancient times are discernible, this only adds another to the many proofs of similarly situated ruins, that the people who built them have been located about Cabul, Jallalabad, and Peshawur, certainly not about Candahar.

In the soil between the rocks, and in their crevices saturated with moisture, most of the plants are just sprouting.  Trichonema, Crocus, and one or two other monocotyledons, Labiatae?  Sedum three or four species, exclusive of Sedoides foliis deltoides sphathulatis, and a Stapelioid Asclepias, are to be found.  I also got a new fern, the fourth species out of 1,300 sp. it is a Ceterach or Grammitis, a curious stalked snuff-ball, and one or two other Fungi, with an inverted cap, were met with.

In the fields a young Ranunculus in profusion, Veronica agrestis, Euphorbia, Festuca annua?

Kochia spinosa, and a curious Mathioloid are among the few wild plants to be found about Pushut.

It would be a curious circumstance if all indusiate ferns were to be found reducible to a marginal production of the reproductive apparatus.  I will bear this in mind, as certain forms of Pteris or its affinities lead me to suspect that in these tribes the indusium may be a long way from the margin, and yet be, quoad origin, marginal; this section illustrates my meaning.

[Fern sections:  m444.jpg]

The transition to this might reasonably be suspected.  The philosophy of ferns is most ill understood, the higher points connected with them have been quite neglected, and botanists in this as in other departments of the science have been contented to confer names on certain external forms, without sufficient regard to structure.

To-day I commenced examining Adiantum, with the view of determining if possible the nature of its reproductive organs, and the mode in which they are impregnated, if they are impregnated at all.

As I had long been aware that the fructification of each frond is a thing to be determined at a very early period, and that if not determined then, it is never likely to be determined afterwards, my attention was directed more strongly, if possible, than it would have been otherwise, to examining the subject at the earliest possible stage of its development.