214 



"produce abundantly this peculiar and beautiful fungus. There the grey 

 ' cock of the woods' still crows in undisturbed regality and from the resemblance 

 Polyporus intybaceus, seated among the grass at the foot of the tree, bears to 

 his wife, the grey hen, while she is brooding over their progeny, it is not unaptly 

 called 'La poule qui couve.' The colour of the pileus is a sober grey brown, 

 relieved with zones of a deeper shade, whilst the under surface is snowy white 

 like the bird's down when she angrily elevates her feathers." This plant is 

 rare in England, but in those districts "no Fungus is more highly esteemed 

 as an article of diet." Unlike most Funguses it is not the top that is eaten, 

 but the large solid white stems. These, moreover, may be dried and thus pre- 

 served for a considerable time. They are gently stewed down to render them 

 soft, and served in a variety of ways. 



To those who understand the rich nourishing food which Edible Funguses 

 afford, it is a consolation to know that is has been very abundant this autumn 

 in Alsace and Lorraine. The constant presence of such large armies there must 

 necessarily produce a famine, so far as ordinary articles of food are concerned, 

 but they could not take from the poor peasantry that " manna of the poor," 

 the Funguses, " free to all, and every day renewed," which must indeed this 

 year have proved an inestimable blessing to them. 



Notwithstanding the unfavourable season for Funguses this year, the zeal 

 shewn in their study has considerably increased. Several species, new to this 

 country, have been found here ; and the crowds that rilled the large room of 

 the Horticultural Society at Kensington in October, to see the Exhibition of 

 Funguses, sufficiently testified to the increasing interest taken in them by the 

 public generally. 



The event, however, which marks most prominently the Mycological 

 progress of the year, is the publication of the first and chief part (pp. 376) of the 

 " Handbook of Bbitish Fungi," by Mr. M. C. Cooke, " with full descriptions of 

 all the Species, and Illustrations of the Genera." This book will render great 

 service to the student in this difficult branch of Mycology, following, as it does, 

 so closely the excellent descriptions of Fries and of Berkeley. It yet adds fuller 

 details, which are as necessary, as they will prove to be most useful to the inde- 



[Note :— The mushrooms cultivated in some parts of the catacombs of Paris have proved 

 of great service during the seige. A letter written on Christmas-eve by a lady who, with 

 her family, was shut up in Paris (published in the London Times, of January 13th), gives a 

 touching picture of the straits to which families with ample means were reduced. "The 

 food was daily shrinking from every one." It was long since she had tasted animal food, 

 since she could not " avail herself of the loathsome substitutes which are now quite com- 

 mon." Potatoes had long disappeared, and it was an event when the servants found one 

 day five or six small ones in the bottom of a closet." "The servants might have had 

 chocolate, but preferred bread-soup with wine, and eat mangold-wurtzel as salad." Then 

 after exact details of her own meagre fare, she savs "For dinner we have sometimes a 

 weak vegetable broth ; sometimes, as to-day, we have a wonderful find— peasoup : some- 

 times tapioca bouillon; then occasionally a dish of mushrooms, and these fungi have served 

 us in good stead; they make quite a meal well stewed." The thernometer was at this time 

 was 12 degrees below zero, and the mushrooms could only have been produced in small 

 quantities.'] 



