142 EYE SPY 



vertical direction, without the slightest side mo- 

 tion, the spore-print in all its beauty will be re- 

 vealed — perhaps a rich brown circular patch with 

 exquisite radiating white lines, marking the direc- 

 tion and edges of the gills, if an Agaric ; perhaps 

 a delicate pink, more or less clouded disk, here 

 and there distinctly and finely honey-combed with 

 white lines, indicating that our specimen is one of 

 the polypores, as a Boletus. Other prints will 

 yield rich golden disks, and there will be prints 

 of red, lilac, greens, oranges, salmon -pinks, and 

 browns and purples, variously lined in accordance 

 with the number and nature of the gills or pores. 

 Occasionally we shall look in vain for our print, 

 which may signify that our specimen had already 

 scattered its spores ere we had found it, or, what 

 is more likely, that the spores are invisible upon 

 the paper, owing to their whiteness, in which case 

 a piece of black paper must be substituted for the 

 white ground, when the response will be beauti- 

 fully manifest in a white tracery upon the black 

 background. One of these, from the Amanita 

 muscarius, is reproduced in our illustration. If 

 the specimen is left too long, the spore -deposit 

 is continued upward between the gills, and may 

 reach a quarter of an inch in height, in which 

 case, if extreme care in lifting the cap is used, we 

 observe a very realistic counterfeit of the gills of 

 the mushroom in high relief upon the paper. A 



