usurpers — their reign lasted two years ; by the third, only a dwindKng casual pUeus was to be found, but 

 Dadalia biennis, Agarieus styptieus, and various others took their place ; Reticidarias being the last to find 

 a habitat on wood, channelled tluroughout by carpenter bees, and wliich is now held together by the roots 

 of the plants placed in it. "Let us see what there is on the stumps," — once sure to be productive of some 

 Fungus or other, is a useless errand now, and we only regret that a register was not kept of the demolition 

 of our wooden giants, Gog and Magog, by the united efforts of insects and parasites. Another stump, also 

 oak, produced a plentiful crop of Tremella Jimbriata, for one season, and never anything else; a fourth had 

 the decayed spaces filled with Reticularia umbrina ; and at that same period there was a kind of epidemic 

 of them, notices being sent from various quarters of "a species of puff-ball" growing in ancient trees. If 

 any of our friends should find tliis monster, a silvery brown or pure white puff, on decaying wood, it is 

 Reticularia umbrina, having brown powder for its main substance, the sac which contains it being very 

 evanescent; or it may be Reticularia maxima, externally snowy white, internally purple black. 



