119 



remarkable trees, and regaled the whole party with bread and cheese and exceUent 



cider. J T 



Before dinner, the fungi were taken to the Museum, and arranged, in 

 the meantime Mr. Berkeley had Hndly written a very pleasant letter on behaH of 

 himself and Mrs. Lloyd Wynne, from Coed Coch, enclosing a few fungi of interest ; 

 these were three species of Hygrophorics, viz., the var. lacmus of H. subradiatus ; 

 the orange-topped H. turundus, not yet recorded from Hereford ; and a new 

 species of Hygrophorus, named by Mr. Berkeley, H. Wynnim: this plant was 

 immediately put under a glass case by Dr. BuU, lest it should be touched by pro- 

 fane and unfungological fingers. Mr. Berkeley will in good time supply the 

 characters, for it would be a mortal sin, never to be forgiven, for one person to 

 dare to describe another person's fungus-for then, according to the laws of botany, 

 the species would always bear the describer's name. We may venture to say that 

 its colour is a beautful pure, semi-transparent, lemon colour, with just a suggest- 

 ion of green. By dinner time a good number of the other species had been placed 

 npon the table, but these were hardly worth enumeration, as they belonged 

 (with the exception of Gomphidius maculatus) to ordinary woodland species. 



THE DINNER. 



The dinner went off as these dinners usually do ; there was a difficulty in 

 getting sufficient edible fungi for the banquet, so the worthy, learned and valuable 

 Doctor, who always presides (may he live for ever !) had to confine his attention to 

 preparations of the truly delicious and succulent Hygrophorus pratensis, and the 

 exquisite and highly-pleasing Agaricus nebularis. Dr. Bull dispensed these savoury 

 and steaming viands with his own hands to the fifty-two diners, from bowls of 

 rich fungus soup. It really was a treat for aU who understood physiognomy (as 

 do aU the Woolhopians), to see the unmistakable external marks of internal gas- 

 tronomic satisfaction suffuse the delighted faces of the recipients as they each 

 consumed the precious and Elysian fungoid comestibles dispensed to them from 

 the safe hands of the Doctor. 



Mr. Thomas Howse and Mr. Cecil Perceval were elected Honorary Mem- 

 bers of the Society, and then Dr. Bull powerfully reviewed the fungus work of 

 the year, referring to several poisoning cases, and aptly illustrated his remarks 

 by an account of a pauper who lost his life through eating too much pudding. Dr. 

 BuU then read a telegram he had just received from Paris, directed to the officers 

 and members of the Woolhope Club from Mons. Maxime Corau, their last year's 

 guest. The telegram was sent by M. Cornu and one or two other French fung- 

 ologists, congratulating the Woolhope Club on the renewal of its work, and ex- 

 pressing pleasant remembrances of the meeting of last year. Mr. Plowright then 

 referred in detail to the two recent poisoning cases at Hampton Court and Nor- 

 folk, the general opinon of the members being that the Hampton Court girls were 

 poisoned by Agaricus fastibilis (it was growing everywhere at the time), and the 

 Norfolk parties by Agaricus acuteaquamosus. The Rev. Augustin Ley read, in 

 conclusion, a valuable paper on the mosses of Herefordshire, after which Mr. Lees 

 made a few remarks on mosses and molehills. 



