Ausi-sT, li)02.j 



KNOWLEDGE. 



173 



commou house-bug, while Ilygrophorus cossus smells like 

 the larvae of the goat-moth. Fifteen or sixteen species 

 of agai-ic resemble oatmwil boUi in taste and smell; 

 Hydnuni repaiidum has the flavour of oysters, recalling 

 the oyster plant among the Boraginaceae, whose leaves 

 have a similar taste. Several are possessed of a nut- 

 like flavour. 



The common Stinkhorn, PhaJluf impudicus, is the 

 best known representative of a large family of fungi, 

 tlie members of which are found in various parts of the 



Fio. 11).— Tlie Stinkhorn. 



Fig. 20.— Clatkrus. 



I 



world. The PhaUoidi include Phallus, Lysurus, Sim- 

 blum, Clathrus, Aseroe and other genera, all characterized 

 by offensive odours and conspicuous colours. These fungi 

 have been carefully studied by Mr. T. Wemyss Fulton, 

 whoso paper on the " Dispersion of Spores in Fungi " in 

 the Attnah of Botany for 1899 contains many interesting 

 and important observations bearing on mimicry. 



The rapid elongation of the stinkhorn is very remark- 

 able; the fungus has been obser\'ed to attain a height 

 of several inches in half an hour, furnishing an apt 

 illustration of the proverb that ill weeds grow apace. 

 It not only emits an intolerable chamel-house stench, 

 but its ghastly pallid hue seen against the background of 

 its usual sun-oundings is peculiarly suggestive of the dead 

 carcass of some animal. Its surface at first exudes a 

 sweetish slimo containing sugar, but the hymenium or 

 spore-bearing portion is deliquescent and the entire mass 

 speedily undergoes a series of changes, the white becom- 

 ing brown, then black, the solid mass being ultimately 

 resolved into a dark foetid fluid in which the spores are 

 suspended. These mimetic changes, which so closely 

 approximate to those of decomposition, attract carrion 

 flies in prodigious numbers. Blow-flies even deposit their 

 eggs on the fungus, and the maggots seem to develop 

 as though nourished by its su'.'stance. On examination 

 Mr. Fulton found the spores adhering in thousands to 

 the feet and probpscides of the insects. Their excrement 

 he found to consist almost entirely of spores, and the 

 latter were proved by experiment to be still capable of 

 germination. There is thereiore no doubt in this case 

 that flies are employed as agents in the dispersion of 

 the fungus. This statement also applies to various 

 Coprini and others with a deliquescent hymenium. The 

 spores of Coprinus fimentarius are ultimately contained 

 in a slimy liquid substance having a foetid odour and 

 eagerly sought after by flies. In this species the jiileus 

 becomes revolute and fissured at its margins whereby it 

 acquires a curious superficial resemblance to the flower- 

 hcads of some composites, the brownish centre corrc^ 

 Bponding to the disk and the marginal segments to the 

 white florets of the ray. 



THE PLAIN OF PRUSSIA. 



By Gbenville A. J. Cole, m.k.i.a., p.o.s. 



Holland is known as a flat country, where architects 

 have admirable chances; and the same type of scenery 

 continues for souu- distance to the east, barus, church- 

 towers, and windmills forming the main features of the 

 landscape. When, after some feeling of monotony, and 

 nine hours in the express from Vlissingen, we coiue in the 

 afternoon to the desolate heath of Liineburg, we seem 

 about to meet with wilder things. The largo undulations 

 of this sandy watershed look mountainous after a morn- 

 ing spent in Holland ; vague and perishable roads wander 

 across them; and here and there a single figure, some lost 

 soul of an agriculturist, appears ploughing the soil, which, 

 but for him, would be a heathery and hopeless waste. 

 The railway and the adjacent Kaiser strasse, which is paved 

 with blocks of stone to give it some rigidity, seem the only 

 signs of civilisation. 



Yet in time we come to the Elbe, and the forest of 

 masts at Hamburg, and industrial Germany seems to 

 spread before us. So far, in reality, we have only crossed 

 the fringes of the plain. If we follow it to the Russian 

 frontier, our ideas of its magnitude will certainly grow 

 more precise. 



The extraordinarily uniform nature of the landscape 

 makes it almost inevitable that one Power should seek to 

 hold this country from the east end of the Baltic to the 

 west, and away beyond, even to the coast of Holland. 

 One by one the minor states have yielded, and the un- 

 scientific frontier of Holland still keeps her open to future 

 attack, either by diplomacy or arms. The first political 

 sign of this Baltic uniformity was the establishment, in 

 the thirteenth century, of the Hansa League, which bound 

 the scattered seaports into one powerful federation, ready 

 to defy the Danes and Scandinavians on the north, and to 

 make their own terms with the imperial forces on the 

 south. To this day the Hansa towns form the glory of 

 the Baltic coast. 



Once outside the towns, however, the features of the 

 great plain begin afresh. A few miles east of Hamburg, 

 with our backs to the great Liineburg Heath, which goes 

 oft' in waves beyond the horizon, we are out in the enormous 

 meadows, where a hundred head of speckled cattle graze 

 within a single field. The red brick towns are succeeded 

 by red brick or timber villages ; stone is far too valuable 

 to be used elsewhere than on the roads. The village streets 

 are paved with permanent blocks of granite, syenite, 

 diorite, or other crystalline rocks ; the Kaisersfrassen are 

 macadamised with uniform fiagments of the same mate- 

 rials. Here and there some hillock or cutting reveals 

 the underlying substance of the plain, sand or loose earth 

 ill which pebbles and boulders are abundant. In the few 

 I>laces where the bed-rock is known below these layers of 

 detritus, it is not such as to yield pebbles of crystalline 

 rock by any process of decay. Dr. Wahnschaffe* has 

 collected the records of some five hundred borings through 

 the superficial deposits, which reach in many cases a thick- 

 ness of fifty, and sometimes even of two hundred metres. 

 The beds penetrated lower down are in a few instances of 

 Triassic age, but far more commonly are Cretaceous or 

 Cainozoic. In no case are granitic or even volcanic rocks 

 recorded. White chalk, as is well known, conies to the 

 surface in the cliffs of Riigen on the Baltic ; but crystal- 

 line masses must be sought in the Harz Mountains or on 

 the borders of Bohemia. 



The boulders of the great plain of Prussia are not, how- 



• " Die Ursachen der Oberllachengestaltung des norddeiitschen 

 Flachlandes " (ICOl), pp. 18—59. 



