FUXGI. 31 



for maniirp, and even it is said for food for cattle, who perhaps in some places 

 may ai(|uiro a taste for it. It was once supposed that the 'edible bird's nest' 

 ■was formed of a species of gelatinous seaweed, but it is now well known that it 

 is composed of inti-rlaciiis!; tlireads of salivary mucus, developed periodically in vary- 

 ing amount, by several species of Collocalia. Laver, once so much esteemed by 

 people of scrofulous habit, is a seaweed {Porphyra vulgaris), but the use of sea- 

 weed as a medicinal agent, together with burnt sjionge, has fallen out of fasliion 

 since the discovery of the active ingredient in both, iodine, to which their efficacy 

 in scrofulous comjilaints was due. A revival has however taken place of late in 

 the form of a nostnim barbarously named 'anti-fat,' which is believed to mainly 

 consist of a preparation of tlie common bladder-weed of the English coast. That 

 there is urgent need of some such medicine is unquestionable, since fi'om the vast 

 number of ([uack medicines advertised in the most blatant fashion in every periodical, 

 it is ceitaiu that the number of persons who support such a system and consume 

 such trash must be enormous, a fact which aifords the strongest evidence of in how 

 many cases, the undesirable adiposity of their muscular system must have spread 

 to and permeated their brains as well. 



FUNGI. 

 Cellular flowerless plants, deriving noui'lshment through their spawn or myceliiim, 

 which consists of a mass of loose, delicate, branched and interlacing threads of a 

 cottony texture (readily seen in earth which contains what is called " mushroom 

 spawn "), and propagated by means of minute spores. Fructification various. 



" A largo class of cryptogams distinguished from Alga^, more by habit than by 

 general cliarueter. They agree with tliem in their celluhu' structure, which is vciid 

 of anytliiug like vascular tissue, except in very few cases, while they dilicr in tlnir 

 scarcely ever being aquatic, in deriving nutriment from the substance on which tlicy 

 grow, and in the far lower degree of devflopment of the organs of impregnation." 

 " The uses of Fungi are various. They afford excellent and stimulating food, 

 valuable medicine, besides less important assistance in domestic economy. Their 

 ofiSce in the organized world is to check exuberant growth, to facilitate decomposition, 

 to regulate the balance of the component elements of the atmosphere, to promote 

 fertility, and to nourish myriads of the smaller members of the animal kingdom. 

 They occur in every part of tlie world where the cold is not too intense to destroy 

 their spawn, or where there is sufficient moisture, though they abound most in moist 

 temperate regions where the summer is warm." — Bcrkeh')/. 



The species named in the following catalogue are, for the most part, those 

 collected by the late Mr. Sulpiz Kurz, as named and described by the late Frederick 

 CuiTcy, F.il.S., in the Liuntean Society's Transactions, from which they have been 

 copied. The greater number were collected in Biu'ma ; a few in Bengal. These 

 last I have left standing in the list, as, in all probability, they will one day be 

 found in Burma also. A few species, collected by myself, and recently named 

 for me by Mr. M. C. Cooke, have been added to tlie list, and inserted in their proper 

 places. They are distinguished by the initial P. 



Agaricini. * 



AoAEicrs (Lepiota) contixufs, Berk. Maulmain, P. 

 A. (Psalliota) campkstuis, L. Maulnuiin, P. 



Tbis, tlie genuine English ifushroom, used to make its appearance in my com- 

 pound in ifaulmain, during the rainy season, on rare occasions and after long intervals, 

 very much to my surprise. I can recollect only three or four such in the course of 

 some twenty years. On each occasion it was in or near the same sjiot, at the foot of a 

 tree and at tlie bottom of a steep bank where, year after year, I used to heap uj) all 

 the fallen leaves I coidd collect to make vegetable mould. Suddeidy, on some day 

 in the rains, two or tliree mushrooms of a .small size would a])])ear in the gravel path 

 near the decayed leaves ; but my hopes of a succession were always disappointed, as 



