268 
THE FUNGUS FORAY, 1882. 
HEREFORD ! a name which calls up a host of pleasant memories to the present 
generation of British mycologists. Year after year do the devoted members of 
this confraternity look forward to the Woolhope week with an ardour no pluvial 
downpour can damp. For twelve years past it has been the privilege of the 
writer to be present at the Fungus Foray of the Woolhope Club, but never has 
the weather been more propitious than was the case this year. In the earlier days of 
these forays it was considered rather meritorious than otherwise to journey some 
200 miles to be present, but times have changed since then. Now mycologists come 
double the distance, as the Rev. J. Stevenson did this year, from Glamis, in For- 
farshire, and nothing is thought of it, or, as when our French confréres came a year 
or two ago, some of them from (to us) unknown regions trending towards the 
Jura mountains. This much is certain, that to acquire anything like an extended 
knowledge of the larger fungi the student must be an enthusiast. Of course any 
one with ordinary care and attention may learn to recognise the commoner species, 
but to pursue the study of the rarer, or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say, 
the less known and less easily recognized species, necessitates a great amount of 
enthusiasm, for several reasons ; firstly, because the bulk of the specimens can 
only be obtained at one period of the year, and that but a limited one ; then, as 
a rule, they occur in great numbers simultaneously ; then, again, their ephemeral 
nature compels one to work at them almost night and day if their characters are 
to be grasped ; and, lastly, the absence of any easily applicable method of preser- 
vation by which the determined specimen of one year can be compared with the 
gatherings of the next—if the plant appears the following year, which is by no 
means to be depended upon ; often one has to wait several years before seeing the 
same fungus again. But with the motto of the Club, ‘‘ Hope on, hope ever,” 
autumn after autumn finds the working mycologists of Britain wending their 
respective ways to the western city, and so this year, on Tuesday, October 3, there 
met at Ludlow station some dozen gentlemen, including, of course, Dr. Bull, 
Dr. M. C. Cooke, Rev. J. Stevenson, Rev. Canon Du Port, Messrs. W. Phillips, 
F.L.S.; T. Howse, F.L.S., &c., after the usual hand shakings and mutual 
greetings, the well-known voice cried ‘‘ For—ward gentlemen,” and off the party 
started for Whitcliff Woods, not before, however, every one had expressed to 
every one else their extreme pleasure at seeing Mr. Broome, who was prevented 
last year by ill-health from attending the meetings, once again in the field, rake 
in hand. The first find fell to the Doctor in Hygrophorus fornicatus, the next to 
Mr. Phillips in the shape of a 
** Bonnie wee Cryptogame, 
That has na got a name,” 
—a very beautiful Agaric growing on a stump, for which, strange and wonderful 
to relate, no one would venture a name. The party then deployed to search for 
Strobilomyces strobilaceus, but without success. Soon afterwards a Cortinarius was 
gathered, which at once indicated what the character of these meetings was to be, 
