NOYEMBER. 505 



cinus, intermixed with others of the most delicate 

 ivory white, or dark and shaggy with brown hairs. 

 Then a descent into some deep sequestered wood 

 offers a varied and charming spectacle soon as the foot 

 treads upon the crimp brown foliage, and the eye 

 peers about among the shadowed nooks still penetra- 

 ble with difficulty. Here, pillowed on a twig, like a 

 humming-bird's nest with eggs, appears the brown 

 Nidularia half immersed in black mould a family of 

 crimson Pezizce meet the eye the curious Hydnum 

 rises, its under surface all prickles Auricularice* in 

 banded masses of dark plush or velvet, circle every 

 old stump and the ground is strewed with coralloid 

 tufts of Clavarice, white, purple, or yellow. In short, 

 every heap of decaying wood, leaves, or other organiz- 

 ed matter, will be found teeming with these vegetable 

 vultures, whose office it seems to be to take posses- 

 sion of, if not to resuscitate the molecules of dead 

 or dying substances ; and thus by a continuance 

 of the vital functions keep on that healthy action, 

 between themselves and the surrounding atmosphere, 

 which, without their aid, would become contaminated 

 by the constantly increasing masses of putrescence. 

 Thus, the scents diffused by the fungi are almost 

 invariably of a grateful description, at least before in 

 their turn they decay; and in effecting this compensa- 

 ting object, the efficient contriver of their economy 

 has caused them to appear in the most singular forms, 

 such as cups, urns, bowls, globes, &c., and of every 

 tint and colour (though blues and greens are rare), 

 as if to deck even decay and ruin with beauty, nor 

 leave a single deformity to repress curiosity, or still 

 the voice of instruction. 



* Or Thelephora, of recent cryptogamic writers. 



