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stramonium, and such like plants, be distinpruished from parsley, sorrel, water- 

 cress, or spinach? Manifestly not by any general characters, but by specific 

 diflEerences. And so it is with fungi. We must learn to discriminate Agaricus 

 muscarms from Agaricus rubescens in the same manner as we would discriminate 

 parsley from JSthusa cynapium." 



Nothing need be added to this ; and the more widely it is made known and 

 recognised the better. Ordinary mushroom gatherers know but two species. A. 

 campestris, and A. arvensis, and they know them so well that no accident occurs. 

 They must be taught to know A. rubescens, from A. pantherinus ; Lactarius 

 dcUciosus from L. torminosus ; Cantharella cibarius from G. aurantiacus ; as 

 certainly as they know an apple from a potato. 



But who are to teach them ? I consider that our endowed elementary 

 schools are the proper channels through which this knowledge should be conveyed. 

 It is of much more importance and practical utility in after life for children to be 

 taught the di£ference between a poisonous and an edible fungus than the exact 

 population of the British empire or the distance of the moon from the earth. Two 

 conditions are necessary for carrying this out— the first is teaching the teachers, 

 and the second is making it a subject of the annual examination, in connection 

 with other elementary subjects of natural history, which are at present lament.ably 

 neglected. The knowledge of some dozen species is all that requires to be taught, 

 so that no fear need be excited that a serious additional burden will be added to 

 the already heavy one on the shoulders of teacher or scholar. Children are 

 naturally fond of natural history, and the subject would be regarded by them as a 

 pastime rather than a labour. 



Another great help in popularizing this study is the adopting, and giving 

 fixity to, English names of species, which should embody some prominent 

 characters by which the species can be known. When an intelligent and observant 

 boy runs up to you with a beautiful or curious fungus he has just found, and asks, 

 " What is its name ?" how blank and bewildered he looks if you tell him it is the 

 rare StroUloniyces Strobilaceus ; or if his little sister produces from her basket one 

 that she has found on the stump of an old tree and you tell her it is the rare 

 Polyporus Schiveinitzii, what wonder if she should drop her basket in dismay. If 

 they survive these shocks they must be marvellous children indeed ! For scientific 

 purposes Latin names, even though barbarous, as they often are, must be regarded 

 as essential, but if English birds, quadrupeds, fish, and flowers have English 

 names, why not fungi? Some few years ago I published a list of the 

 Hymenomycetes of Shropshire, in which I gave the English names as well as the 

 Latin, but was severely called to task in a botanical periodical of high standing 

 for so doing. This \viseacre had his say, and I had my own way. Sufely "giant 

 puff-ball " is as good a designation for popular use as Lycopcrdon gigantcum, and 

 " parasol mushroom " as good as Agaricus procerus. Many of the attempts to give 

 English names to fungi have been unfortunate, and some even ridiculous. A book 

 appeared a few years back called a " Text-book of British Fungi," in which the 

 author indulged his fruitful fancy in coining new names, which caused much 

 merriment at the time. Amongst them were the Wrinkletwig, the Jelly-sprout, 



