82 Rev. M. J. Berkeley on the Fructification of the 



the good fortune to meet with the Comptes Rendus des Seances 

 de l'Academie for the Session January 2, 1837, in which there 

 is a report of M. Montagne's paper by MM. Mirbel, Turpin 

 and Richard, from which it appears that there is a great dif- 

 ference between our observations, though at the same time 

 there is a strong confirmation in what is there adduced of the 

 correctness of the views which are now offered. He under- 

 stands the evolution of the reproductive bodies in a very dif- 

 ferent way from myself, though it is quite clear that his ob- 

 servations, as far as they go, are substantially the same as my 

 own, and he appears to have altogether overlooked the very 

 important fact that their arrangement is very generally qua- 

 ternary as in Coprinit His observations appear not to have 

 been extended at all to the Clavate Fungi. 



I should perhaps feel more diffidence with respect to my 

 own correctness, on finding such discrepancy in the account 

 given by so eminent an observer as M. Montagne, if I were 

 not in the first place sure that the facts as stated by him are 

 such as will eventually lead him to similar results with my 

 own, and were I not in the second place supported by the tes- 

 timony of accurate observers, to whom I have communicated 

 the facts, who have seen precisely the same appearances as 

 myself. When once any notion is very generally received and 

 supported by high authority, it is very difficult even in matters 

 of much less obscurity than minute microscopic analysis where 

 there is so much room for the exercise of imagination, to divest 

 oneself entirely of preconceptions. A fortunate moment some- 

 times puts one in possession of truths which it would have 

 taken a long and tedious process to arrive at in the ordinary 

 routine of investigation. Nothing can more clearly show that 

 we are both in the right track, than the fact that while M. Mon- 

 tagne has been led to see the perfect analogy between the 

 spores of Botrytis Bassiana and the reproductive bodies of 

 Agarics, I have myself recognised the same fact as regards the 

 spores of Botrytis curta, a species nearly allied to Botrytis 

 parasitica, an analogy which would by no means be suspected. 



In 1729, Micheli* first, I believe, attempted an analysis of 



* Nova Genera Plantamm juxta Touvnefortii methodum disposita. Flo- 

 rentine, 1729. 



