262 THE RING OF NATURE 



NOVEMBER 

 II 



THE MYSTERIOUS FUNGUS 



IN the twilight of the year, when all the flowers 

 have had their day, come the fungi, a sort 

 of elephantine caricature of the flowers, coloured 

 like them in an ascending scale of brilliance, 

 attracting insects and compelling them, as the 

 flowers do, to carry away the instruments of 

 fructification, yet differing from the flowers as the 

 slugs that feed on them differ from the cater- 

 pillars. 



The sweetness of the white clover attracts the 

 honey-bee, as clean, industrious and cheery as the 

 flower is sweet. The radiance of the golden rod 

 is fitted to the magnificence of the red admiral, 

 which hastens to spread its black-and-scarlet 

 wings on its stippled gold. But the odour of the 

 stinkhorn is that of rotten eggs, and the insects 

 that come to it are the noisome carrion flies. 

 Give it the politer name of ' wood witch,' and 

 when you scent its aroma, grateful even to human 

 nostrils for the associations of former autumns, 



