BEAUTIES OP THE FUNGI RACE. 115 



duction of most of the kinds than Monmouth, with 

 its deep dark woods and alpine downs. A resi- 

 dence in that portion of the kingdom for some 

 years introduced to my notice a larger portion of 

 this singular race than every botanist is acquainted 

 with. A sportsman then, but I fear I shall be 

 called a recreant brother of the craft, when I own 

 having more than once let my woodcock escape, 

 to secure and bear away some of these fair but 

 perishable children of the groves. Travellers tell 

 us of the splendour of this race in the jungles of 

 Madagascar, but nothing surely can exceed the 

 beauty of some old copse in Monmouthshire, deep 

 in the valley, calm, serene, shaded by the pensile, 

 elegant, autumnal-tinted sprays of the birch, the 

 ground enamelled with every coloured agaric, from 

 the deep scarlet to pallid white, the gentle gray, 

 and sober brown, and all their intermediate shad- 

 ings. Fungi must be considered as an appendage 

 and ornament of autumn ; they are not generally 

 in healthy splendour until fostered by the evening 

 damps and dews of September, and in this season 

 no part of the vegetable world can exceed them in 

 elegance of form, and gentleness of fabrication ; but 

 these fragile children of the earth are beauties of an 

 hour: . 



Transient as the morning dew, 

 They glitter and exhale, 



and must be viewed before advancing age changes 

 all their features. There is a pale gray fungus 

 (ficjaricus fimiputris') that may very commonly be 



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