264 THE RING OF NATURE 



among the bracken. Others of equal size are for a 

 long time undiscovered because of their perfect like- 

 ness to the dead leaves of an oozing bank on which 

 they grow. Then we find that every other apparent 

 leaf is a leaf-shaped and leaf-coloured fungus. 



Aloft, we have equal luxuriance. A dead beech 

 is white to the topmost twigs with a shiny moist 

 thing in mother-of-pearl that we are informed is 

 edible. High up in an oak there are beef -steak 

 mushrooms, each of them weighing two or three 

 pounds, and, as some think, good as beef-steak 

 itself to eat. A hornbeam has gushed out into 

 forty or fifty big brown things like penny buns, 

 as closely laid one over the other as buns in a dish, 

 and so highly finished according to bun fancy as 

 to be each of them decorated with an excellent 

 imitation of icing. Another tree has fungi of 

 elephant colour a hue at once beautifully soft, 

 of great richness, and as compelling of attention 

 as even the gaudy fly agaric. 



From the grass of the open meadow spring fungi 

 of quite a new shape. They are thick and fleshy 

 twigs with the texture of wax candles, some yellow 

 and some white. Others are branched and compel 

 the name of staghorn, which has universally been 

 applied to them. 



In the natural history picture book at home 

 there is a fungus something like these candle 

 fungi growing from the head of a New Zealand 

 caterpillar, and the description beneath gives the 

 impression that to grow into a fungus is about as 



