xiii.] ABOUT FUNGI. 195 



country schools might instruct the village children on 

 the subject ? Mr. Worthington G. Smith has pub- 

 lished, in two sheets, coloured figures of the most 

 common edible and poisonous fungi, which deserve 

 a place upon the walls of every village school and 

 club. 



With reference to the habitats of fungi they are 

 truly ubiquitous. " We need not travel from home 

 for examples : the unwelcome dry-rot may have com- 

 mitted its ravages beneath our kitchen floor, or the 

 walls of our cellars, and our casks or bottles of wine 

 may be infected with numbers of this ubiquitous 

 race. Can we find no morsel of bread or cheese 

 upon which a mould is flourishing ? No towel or other 

 article of household linen presenting traces of mildew ? 

 Are we perfectly certain that all our preserves are 

 unvisited ? or, to come nearer to some of us, all our 

 books untouched ? But in places which many would 

 consider more unlikely still, we may look for and ex- 

 pect to find fungi : on whitewashed walls, plaster ceil- 

 ings, dirty glass, old flannel, and old boots and shoes, 

 or leather of any description ; on carpets, mats, and 

 boards ; and even the plants of our herbaria must be 

 watched against their ravages. Animals bear them 

 about on their horns and hoofs, and the housefly 

 often carries on its body the vegetating fungus, 

 which ultimately deprives it of life. The yeast that 

 is employed in fermenting our bread and our beer is a 

 fungus, as well as the mildew and smut that infest 

 our growing corn. From cesspools and traps the 

 minute dust-like spores of hidden fungi rise into our 

 dwellings ; unseen they float in the air, entering every- 



