1823.] tM fiaturd Disirihution of Insects and Fungt. 83$ 



in the same year, a third naturalist, without the knowledge of 

 either Decandolle's Memoire or the Hora EntomologiccBj and iil 

 a different part of Europe, pubHshes what he considers to be the 

 natural arrangement of Fungi, Argiring a priori, this third 

 naturalist fancies that the determinate number into which these 

 acotyledonous plants are distributed ought to be four ; but finds 

 it necessary, in order that it may coincide with observed facts, 

 to make it virtually five. Nay, at last, in spite of the prejudice 

 of theory, he is unable to withstand the force of truth, throws 

 himself into the arms of Nature, and declares that where he 

 actually finds his natural group complete in all its parts, there 

 the determinate number is five. 



Now, on considering that his work was given to the world two 

 years after the first part of the Hoj^ce Entomological, it is clear 

 that, had M. Fries fixed at once on the number five, there might 

 have been room for supposing, that he had not altogether trusted 

 to his own observation, but had borrowed the idea of a quinary 

 distribution. As matters however at present stand, this suppo- 

 sition cannot for a moment be harboured ; and I cannot help 

 rejoicing that the strength of this beautiful theory should be 

 so completely brought home to the conviction of every mind, as 

 it must be, by observing the manner in which different persons 

 have respectively stumbled upon it in- totally distinct depart- 

 ments of the creation. We may all possibly be wrong in part, 

 or even in much of our respective details ; but however this may 

 be, it is difficult not to beheve that we are grasping at some 

 great truth, which a short lapse of time will perhaps develop in 

 all its beauty, and at length place in the possession of every 

 observer of nature. 



It may be well to note, that M. Fries draws in the clearest 

 manner a distinction between his Hysterophyta or Fungi, a.nd 

 the Protophyta, which is a natural group consisting of the Lin- 

 neean Alg^ and Lichenes, He proves that they form two dis- 

 tinct series of vegetables having analogous exterior forms at 

 their corresponding points. Hence, according to what has pre- 

 ceded, the Protophyta and Fungi form in the vegetable kingdom 

 two primary groups of equal degree. In Protophyta fructifica* 

 tion is secondary, and the thallus essential ; whereas in Fungi 

 it is quite the reverse. According to our author the first-born 

 of Flora may all be accounted as essentially roots, and represent- 

 ing the mode of nutrition ; while every fungus is as truly and 

 representatively connected with fructification and reproduction. 

 Throwing aside other considerations, we may perceive the ana- 

 logous groups of the animal kingdom to be likewise constructed 

 on a similar plan. Each of the Acrita, for example, imbibing 

 nourishment at every pore of their surface, internal or external, 

 is essentially a stomach, while the situation of the singular 

 ovaries of the Radiata cannot fail to remind us of the importance 

 and position of the sporidia in Fungi, The umbellate Medusa, 



