44 
courage to venture. Some five-and-twenty repaired to Stoke Edith by train, 
where they were joined by the President (the Rev. James Davies), who had been 
kindly accommodated with a seat in Miss Guthrie’s carriage, in which were Miss 
Guthrie herself, Mrs. Lloyd Wynne, of Coed Coch, and Mr. Washington Jackson. 
The noble owner of Stoke Edith, Lady Emily Foley, had most considerately 
placed her head-gardener and head-keeper at the services of the forayers, and thus 
the delays arising out of defective and speculative guidance were pleasantly mini- 
mised. The short grass of the shrubberies was, as usual, excellent hunting ground ; 
but the most favourable finds of the day were as follows :—The rare yellow 
Hygrophvus Chrysodon, showing clearly its colours on the slightest bruise ; a great 
profusion of Ag. (Armillaria) mucidus on the beech-trees, in a larger and finer con- 
dition than is often seen, the larger specimens being from four to six inches across ; 
a lovely segment of a circle of the Fly Agaric Ag. (Amanita) muscarius, too 
beautiful not to be commemorated ; and a very curious Amanita, not fully grown, 
which puzzled the experts to discriminate and determine. It might be a young 
giant of a Vaginatus, but the scales were not right, nor was its edge suleated. Or 
it might be a young Strangulatus, or ELacelsus. A nut for the mycologists to crack ! 
An eye must be kept on the spot for future examination. Here also, as on almost 
every foray, was found the interesting Hygrophorus Calyptreformis, nowhere, 
however, in great abundance. 
To those who joined the excursion to Stoke Edith, albeit on a day little 
favoured by sunshine, there were several other attractions, scarcely secondary to 
the prime motive of fungologising. The flower-garden, geometrically arranged by 
Nesfield, is as perfect a thing as can be seen in a long day’s survey of parks and 
gardens. It is oddly brightened. too, when the bloom is yielding to the early 
frosts, and spiteful winter forecasts its shadows—by the bright red cloaks of the 
women who weed the gravel-paths of varied shape and colour. Beyond its pre- 
cincts, up a succession of undulating slopes, stretches an ample deer park, magni- 
ficently timbered, and reaching up to the lofty ridge of Seager Hill, whence a 
carriage drive commands a grand and extensive outlook of the valleys and hills of 
Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and South Wales. Beneath it, southward, lies 
the Woolhope country, which seems to say to the Club followers, whom it has 
christened, “ Antiquam exquirite matrem.” For the mansion itself, its hall, 
library, pictures, and tapestry-the last exceedingly curious and well worthy of 
minute inspection—our readers may refer to the ‘Mansions and Manors ” of the 
President-Elect. Our space at present admonishes us to take wing, in thought, 
for Hereford, where—despite the charms of Stoke Edith—a committee meeting 
awaits the President of 1873 and 1874, to say nothing of the feast and the pre- 
sentation, which attract as great an interest for many as the forays. These have 
been already reported elsewhere, and it needs but that we should glance at the 
treasures of the Fungus Exhibition, which graced the sideboards of the Green 
Dragon euest-chamber—for ornament, let it be added, in more instances, than for 
edible use. Amongst these we noticed specimens of the Ag. Mucidus, measuring 
half an inch more than the largest of those at Stoke Edith ; and a splendid sample 
