44 The ScotiisJi Naturalist. 



damage inflicted to our possessions animate and inanimate ; and lastly, of the 

 interest to every one in the effort to penetrate in some degree into the mysteries 

 of nature, mysteries that even yet meet the inquirer on every side in this line 

 of research. 



But be the ground of investigation what it may, the result is that of late 

 years very rapid progress has been made in adding to what was formerly known 

 concerning Fungi. This information is very widely scattered in works and 

 journals in many languages ; and the labour of keeping abreast of the advance 

 is too great to be accomplished by any one worker for the whole domain of 

 Mycology. Hence it is more and more felt to be necessary for specialists to 

 devote their attention to comparatively limited groups, so far as a critical 

 knowledge of species is concerned, while retaining a sufficient acquaintance 

 with the science in general to guard against falling into the errors to which too 

 limited a view renders the student liable. In future, therefore, we need not 

 again look for such a textbook on Fungi as Cooke's Handbook of British 

 Fungi, unless, indeed, taken up by several ^specialists in common, each of 

 whom would be responsible for his own special part. But we have no English 

 textbook on Fungi that can be regarded as at all abreast of the present state of 

 our knowledge, or as rendering accessible to the British student of Mycology 

 the vast stores of information accumulated by botanists of all lands since the 

 publication of Cooke's Handbook. 



It is, therefore, with very great pleasure that we are able to announce the pro- 

 bable appearance in no long time of several monographs or groups of British 

 Fungi. Each monograph will be the work of a specialist, than whom there is 

 none in the country more fit to do the work successfully. We trust that they may 

 receive the encouragement they deserve, alike in the numbers of subscribers, 

 and in assistance from all that may be able to aid them with information. 

 These monographs are to be on the following groups of fungi : — 

 Flora of British (Hynienomycetes) Fungi, by Rev. John Stevenson. 

 Mr. Stevenson has made himself well known by his labours in this group, 

 labours that have added not a few species to the British Flora, and still more 

 to the Flora of Scotland. The work will be published (if the number of sub- 

 scribers will allow) by Messrs. Wm. Blackwood & Sons. The subscription 

 list will shortly be closed ; subscriptions may be intimated either to the 

 publishers or to the author {Glamis). 



Mr. William Phillips is engaged on a Monograph of the British Dis- 

 comycetes. He is admittedly the first authority on these Fungi in Great 

 Britain. Intending subscribers should communicate with the author (Canon- 

 bury, Shrewsbury). 



Mr. Plowright is, we understand, at work on the Uredhieas with a view to 

 publication. The results to which he has been led from his own experiments 

 are doubtless known to all interested in this very curious and perplexing group 

 of plants ; and the work will certainly be of much value. 



