432 



^'Bulletin of the Belgian Microscopical) . 



Society" [ From the Society. 



"Bulletin of the Lloyd Library of) The Editor 



Botany and Pharmacy of Cincinnati/ 



The thanks of the Club were voted to the donors. 



Mr. E. S. Salmon read a paper on " New or Rare British 

 Fungi,'*' followed by an account, illustrated by diagrams, of the 

 Life History of the Erysiphaceae (see p. 411). 



The President said they were much indebted to Mr. Salmon 

 for this very interesting paper. He had succeeded admirably in 

 exposing the weaknesses of mycologists, and perhaps it was just 

 as well that they should know something as to where they went 

 wrong. He hoped that Dr. Cooke, who was present, would give 

 them some of his ideas on the subject. 



Dr. M. C. Cooke said that in the first place he was not so 

 pugnacious as he used to be half a century ago ; in the next place 

 he believed that with old age he was getting exceedingly indolent, 

 and in the last place his hearing was not so good as it was, and 

 therefore it was only with the greatest difficulty that he could 

 follow the paper — not being able to hear all. He was such an 

 old Conservative in general, and as regarded fungi in particular, 

 that the mycologists of the present day seemed to him to be going 

 mad in their indiscriminate multiplication of species and genera, 

 by picking out almost a single feature and making a new species 

 based on that alone. They now divided up what used to be 

 thought one species into four or five, and if there was a differ- 

 ence of so many micromillimetres in the size of the spores, that 

 was quite sufficient ground for these people for making a new 

 species. He appealed to his honourable friend in the chair as to 

 whether he had not met with specimens of Peziza in which the 

 spores varied in size. He had obtained specimens of the same 

 species from Germany, and also from Australia, and found that 

 in the majority of cases those from Australia had larger spores 

 than the European specimens. Saccardo and others would how- 

 ever at once ignore all other resemblances, and merely because 

 the spores were larger, would make these new species. In the 

 old days they used to take all things into consideration, and never 

 thought they ought to consider the fruit alone as giving a specific 

 character. The Perisporiacese had been well characterised and 



