INTRODUCTION. V. 



give thirty or forty guineas for an adequate microscope, will find here, as well as in the yet 

 unsettled questions as to the reproduction of Funguses, an ample field for their curiosity. 

 Having suppUed these Hsts for reference, this is not the place to enter into fuller details ; they 

 will be given where they apply to each subject, in the descriptive matter accompanying the 

 plates. We will proceed to the mode of collecting and examining specimens, with a view to 

 ascertaining the species to which they belong, and naming the precise individual ; but it 

 must be remembered that the present work does not pretend to give an entire Cryptogamic 

 arrangement; being merely illustrative ; the student must therefore be provided with vol. v. of 

 the ' EngUsh Flora ' of Sir- J. E. Smith, (being vol. ii. of Dr. Hooker's ' British Flora').' 



ON COLLECTING PUNGUSES. 



A basket is in the first place needful, and if the student should leave home without one, a 

 profusion of lovely and rare objects will be certain to strew his path ; in which case there 

 are but two alternatives, to dissect on the spot, always an imperfect operation, or to carry 

 away the spoil in hat or handkerchief, when on arrival at home, a heterogeneous mass of 

 caps, stems, &c., presents itself — disjecta membra ! who shall assign to each its proper parts? 

 We have known a fishing-basket turned to excellent account when fish were shy, but the best 

 of the osier-woven family is a plate-basket or knife-basket, unlined, it should be about a foot 

 and a half long by a foot wide, and six inches deep, with a partition length-wise, the handle 

 should be made to fold down for the facility of slipping under a carriage seat, and it is more 

 convenient for use without a lid ; any green leaves will screen the contents ; stiff fern-leaves 

 are best to prevent specimens from injuring each other ; place in this basket two tools, for 

 taking up by the roots from the earth, or severing from bark of trees, equally efficacious, a 

 long strong broad-bladed butchers' knife ! start not, gentle reader, and a wrenching chisel ! 

 after much experience we find there is nothing too deep or too tight not to give way to these 

 potent engines ; the chisel should have an oval handle. Having cut deeply round the stem 

 of an Agaric, Boletus, &c., at a sufficient distance to ensure the volva, if it have one, being 

 uninjured, and you wiU find the knife cut easily through turf, insert the chisel, turn the ball 



' Drawn up by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, a hand-book, for which there is no substitute at present. And even if 

 a much desiderated new arrangement of Funguses were completed and in the hands of the public, it would not 

 chanoe the nomenclature. 



