NOYEMBEE. 511 



and lost in air.* Many of the TricUas put forth a 

 glossy coloured wool, which is in like manner acted 

 upon by the wind ; and the congregated Splierololus 

 stellatus, after the manner of a mortar, shoots forth a 

 small globular sporangium or seed vessel, which rises 

 to some height in the air. As BTJLLIAED mentions 

 Puff-balls of the enormous size of nine feet in circum- 

 ference, and some of the tropical fungi it is said have 

 been mistaken for sleeping lions ;f they seem to fur- 

 nish a picture analogous to MILTON'S spirits, that in 

 their spacious hall 



"Swarm'd and were straiten'd ; till the signal given, 

 Behold a wonder ; they but now who seem'd 

 In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons, 

 Now less than smallest dwarfs." 



So under circumstances of brooding moisture, the 

 fungi in the autumnal season put forth their deceptive 

 strength, till grove, field, and hill swarm with their 

 multitudes ; but sudden as is their appearance, their 

 short duration is as surprising ; and the largest drop- 

 ping into liquidity or rising as dust in the air, soon 

 " reduce to smallest forms" their monstrous shapes. 



Much has been written on the edible qualities of 

 the fungi, and Dr. BAD HAM has lauded " the extem- 



* The Rev. J. M. BERKELEY observes in the second vol. of HOOKER'S 

 British Flora, that " In saying that these bodies are analogous to seeds 

 and embryos, some little latitude must be allowed, as the mode of reproduc- 

 tion in perfect plants and Fungi is so different : it having been ascertained 

 that multitudes of sporidia conspire to produce an individual fungus." It 

 seems mercifully ordained that meteoric contingencies are required for the 

 production of these tribes, which prevents their plentiful recurrence, ex- 

 cept at uncertain intervals ; otherwise they would become the locusts of 

 phanerogamic vegetation, and deform and destroy every other plant by 

 their insidious attacks ; for such is their fertility, that in a single indivi- 

 dual of the species forming the smut in corn, (which is only noticeable in 

 legions,) Professor FRIES calculated there was ten millions of sporules. 



t See Professor BURNETT'S Outlines of Fungologia, in his Botany, 



