LONDON INSECTS 101 



other point of melancholy interest in connection with 

 them, though it has nothing to do with insects. Many 

 of them, where the bark has been pulled off by mis- 

 chievous boys, will be seen to be veined under the bark 

 for several feet above the roots with a curious narrow, 

 flat, dry growth of dark colour, not thicker than paper, 

 but very tough, and clinging so closely as to require a 

 knife to separate it from the wood. 



' The growth,' writes Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, to 

 whom a slip was sent for submission to the learned 

 authorities at Kew, 'belongs to an obscure set of 

 organisms known as Rhizomorpha. They are not 

 fully-developed vegetable structures, but are really the 

 mycelial portions of large fungi grown under peculiar 

 conditions. In process of time/ he adds, ' the structure 

 would develop on the exterior of the tree as a large Poly- 

 poriw, a sort of woody fungus. The existence of such 

 a growth under the bark is the tree's death-warrant.' 



When one sees the chain of destruction spreading 

 in every direction through the insect world, as every- 

 where else, the less one thinks of the ' Mystery of Pain ' 

 the subject of one of Canon Kingsley's best sermons 

 in Westminster Abbey the better for one's peace of 

 mind. But it is some relief to know, even at the cost 

 of loss of faith in the infallibility of an idol, that micro- 

 scopic anatomy shows that Shakespeare was altogether 

 wrong when he said that 



' The poor Beetle that we tread on 

 In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great 

 As when a giant dies.' 



AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY 



UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 



CITRUS RESEARCH CENTER AND 



AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION 



RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA 



