MICRO-FUNGI IN SEPTEMBER. 209 
viduals. Some readily become seasoned though perhaps suffering 
much at first, others are equally affected year by year, while a 
fortunate few escape entirely or very nearly so. The bloodthirsti- 
ness of the Mosquito is surprising. If allowed to remain unmolested 
on the part attacked it will gorge itself with blood until it rolls 
helplessly over. The bite produces a small pimple with a minute 
red point which remains for a longer or shorter time differing in 
various individuals. According to Réaumur, when the puncture is 
made a poisonous fluid is secreted by the insect, and he considers 
that it is to this that the disagreeable consequences of the Mosquito 
or Gnat bite are to be ascribed. ‘This view however does not 
appear to have been actually confirmed. It should be noticed that 
only the labium with the lancets and ligula enter the wound. The 
proboscis-like labium may be seen to curl up under the head when 
the insect is feeding, and serves in fact, only, as a sheath for the 
other organs. 
J. B. PETTIGREW. 
MICRO-FUNGI IN SEPTEMBER. 
HE autumn of the year is the great harvest of the student who 
pays especial attention to micro-fungi. It is then that the 
leaves of trees, and vegetation generally, begin to decay under the 
blighting influence of a lower temperature, and as they lose their 
vitality they become the abodes of a new vegetable kingdom, 
which may not improperly be called the invisible kingdom, for so 
far as the world generally is concerned, it is altogether unknown 
and uncared for. With the decay of ordinary vegetation we lose 
one of the most lovely aspects of nature, but to the microscopist 
this is not altogether a loss; there is a happy compensation for 
him in the marvellous wonders he finds in the new world brought 
into existence by the decay of the old. In the earlier portions of 
the year the micro-fungi he was able to find were upon healthy, 
perfect leaves, and comparatively few; now their number is legion, 
and they are found on dead and dying vegetation all around him 
wherever he may care to look for them. It would be vain in me 
to attempt to refer to all the numerous species which now make 
their appearance : the catalogue would be far too long for this short 
article, so I must confine myself chiefly to the notice of what I 
have myself met with in my rambles, or such as I have come upon 
unexpectedly. Still, as almost every locality is the home of special 
plants, microscopic or otherwise, it may be well to refer to such 
micro-fungi as may be easily recognised by the student. 
