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SJty ( 88Ioolho54 Uaturalists' <J|fcld <$lu&. 



MEETING AT HEREFORD. 



Thursday, October 6, 1870. 



THE FORAY AMONG THE FUNGUSES. 



" Quos ipsa Tolentia rura 

 Sponte tulere sua carpsit."— Virgil. 



" He culls from woods, and heights, and fields, 

 Those untaxed boons which Nature yields." 



The autumnal meeting of the Woolhope Club is generally spirited and 

 successful. It is the last of the year, and perhaps greater effort is made to 

 attend it — and certainly the well wooded scenery of Herefordshire never looks 

 more beautiful than on a fine autumnal day — but the chief cause of attraction 

 undoubtedly exists in the opportunity it affords for the study of Funguses. 

 This is made the chief object of the day, and no effort is spared to render it 

 as instructive as possible to all who attend. The specimens found are at once 

 named, or if perchance they are new, or present any features of particular 

 interest they are discussed with a scientific zeal that cannot fail to impart itself 

 more or less to all who are present. Thus more real practical progress in the 

 knowledge of this difficult branch of Botany is made in a single field-day with 

 the "Woolhope Club than could possibly be gained by any amount of mere 

 closet study. 



The long and lovely summer, followed as it has been thus far by a dry 

 and bright autumn, has so completely dried the surface of the ground that 

 vegetation of all kinds languishes for moisture. Notwithstanding the great 

 want of rain, the mists and the dew have occasionally been very heavy, and 

 where the ground is rich and not too hard, have favoured very much the pro- 

 duction of Funguses. It is true that they who would gather them in perfection 

 this year must not heed the poet's caution : 



" The dews of the morning be careful to shun, 

 They're the tears of the night for the loss of the iud." 



