376 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



of some fly in the grub stage, surely a very special 

 fly to forage in so poisonous a mess. The association 

 between the fly-agaric and the birch tree is very 

 marked. We scarcely ever see it ten yards from a 

 growing birch, and have usually found some stump 

 or trace of the tree whenever the fungus has 

 apparently sprung up outside birchland. It is not, 

 as most people imagine, a parasite or a battener on 

 the decay of the tree, but a partner, very much as 

 the nitrifying nodule is a partner to the great 

 leguminous class that it almost exclusively serves. 

 At any rate, we make bold to think so, and long 

 ago shook out some of the spores under the birch 

 on the lawn, and have added to the glory of the 

 pale golden leaves the fiery glow of what the gardener 

 calls " them nasty cankers." 



" Mushroom " has become the last word of reproach 

 for the rapidity with which it springs up, apparently 

 out of nothing. It is because no one sees the long 

 preparation by which the miracle is preceded. The 

 flowering of a fungus is a complete triumph of 

 organisation. For months the thin mycelium-threads 

 spread through the country which is their source of 

 supply, often a country full of chasms, fissures, faults, 

 which must be bridged again and again by these 

 airy message-lines. A pheasant's footstep is a catas- 

 trophe breaking many bridges, but they are silently 

 and swiftly renewed and all the communications 

 made once more intact. The invisible army of 

 occupation goes on extending week by week, and still 

 nothing else happens. Then, as though at a word 

 of command, concentration becomes the order of the 

 day. Supplies pour at breakneck speed along those 



