lis 



ON THE COLOUES OF FUNGI, AS INDICATED BY 



THE LATIN WOEDS USED BY FEIES. 



By the Rev. Canon Du Port, M.A. 



_ Some five years ago when I was examining the Grammar School at Bradford, in 

 Yorkshire, I askeJ the opinion of the Head Master and of my Classical Colleague 

 as to the colours indicated by certain words used by the Latin writers. Copies of 

 Virgil and Horace, dictionaries, and commentaries, were produced, and after 

 much discussion we came to the unsatisfactory conclusion, adopted by one of the 

 Commentators, that the application of our names of colours to the names used by 

 the ancients, if ever these were consistent in their use of them, must frequently be 

 but conjectural. 



For instance, the word 'gilvus,' for which the Dictionaries generally give the 

 meaning ' pale yellow,' Virgil applies to horses, and he says that they are as bad 

 as white ones— "color deterrimus albis, Et gilvo."— Ceojv/. iii. 80. 



Horace applies the word 'luteus,' another form of yellow, to the pallor in- 

 duced by fear— which, with a more natural epithet, though the noun be somewhat 

 vulgar, when I was at school, we used to call a ' blue funk '—but Horace writes 

 thus — 



" O quantus iniitat navitis sudor tuis, 

 Tibique pallor luteus ! " 



Epod. ix. i6. 

 (What perspiration— the cold sweat of fear— comes upon 

 Thy sailors, and what yellow pallor upon thyself.) 



Virgil uses this word ' luteus ' at one time as synonymous with saffron-colour, 

 for in describing the halcyon days prophesied by the Sibyl, he says that " then 

 there will be no need to dye the wool, for the sheep itself will spontaneously pro- 

 duce a lovely red or a saffron yellow." 



" Ipse sed in pratis aries jam suave rubenti 

 Murice, jam croceo mutabit vellera luto." 



Ec. iv. 44. 



But with what to modern eyes seems a strange inconsistency, he applies this 

 same epithet to the dawn, and that we may not i)nagine he means the yellowish 

 tint indicative of a fine day, he adds the epithet ' rosy.' 



".Aurora in roseis fulgebat lutea bigis." 



Pliny the naturalist uses the same word for the yolk of an egg,— "lutea ex 

 ovis quinque columbarum." 



Thus disappointed and perplexed I next sought for some clue in the deriva- 

 tion of our English names. 



'Yellow 'is undoubtedly the same as the old English 'gelu,' which is very 

 closely related to the German 'gelb,' and ultimately sprung from the same Aryan 

 root as Virgil's epithet for the colour for a horse, namely, 'gilvus.' 



The Italian 'giallo' is said (strange as it may seem,) to be descended from 



