14 NoTEs ON WINTER BOTANY. 
by draughts due to differences of temperature and may be distri- 
buted to a distance of a metre from it. The higher temperature 
found in fungi which are fully ripe and on the point of decay 
might, as he suggests, assist in producing those draughts. 
But this writer would surely agree that the insect that 
laid its eggs in that agaricus and its daughter larve later on 
could not avoid carrying off spores when they left the fungus! 
Those spores would surely be rubbed off amongst dead leaves 
or inside the bark, and have a very favourable chance of germi- 
nation. 
Then, again, pollen grains are for the most part insect 
carried, and when we find an identical ornamentation consisting 
of tiny microscopical spines on pollen grains, on spores of 
Tilletia, etc., parasitic on anthers, and on Myxomycete spores 
(which are often bright red or yellow), is it not most reasonable 
to conclude that insects are the most important agents in their 
distribution ? : 
It is quite likely that birds, rabbits, and squirrels carry 
spores from one plantation to another. Mr W. R. Stewart, of 
Glasgow, told me that he had often seen birds attacking the 
larger fungi, and both he and Mr M‘Cutcheon have observed 
squirrels eating fungi. 
Whether spores can survive being swallowed by animals, 
and especially worms and insects, is a difficult question. Mr 
Massee thinks that the Mucors and Mould fungi are swallowed 
by animals, e.g., rabbits, and pass through their intestines 
without injury.* The spores of Ascomycetes and Basidiomy- 
cetes are said by Falk (l.c.) to be destroyed by digestion in 
animals. These two opinions are scarcely reconcilable, for the 
Ascospores are much better protected than those of Mucor. 
Spores even of these minute fungi are both long lived and 
resistant. Mr Lister found that spores of a Reticularia, which 
had been dried three years before, germinated in four hours 
when placed in suitable media. Even the fungi themselves are 
sometimes capable of resisting both heat and, what is still more 
remarkable, drowning. Polyporus Betulinus, etc., dried at a 
temperature of 37 degs. C., revived afterwards when placed in 
moist air.t A Discomycete fungus (Humaria oo-cardii) has been 
* Massee Annals of Botany, Vol. XVI., 1902, p. 57 
+ Gatin Guzewska Comptes Rendus, 12 Dec., 1904. 
