MARCH 69 



knowledge in which original discovery is so likely as 

 that of cryptogamy, wherein Dr. Cooke has long ago 

 established his renown, and he has now provided a 

 handy guide-book to one of the counties of that 

 province. 



This is well, because cryptogamy the study of 

 ferns, mosses, lichens, algae, and fungi has already 

 far outstripped the scope of a single handbook. The 

 marvellous multitude and variety of these humble 

 forms of organic life is well illustrated by the fact that 

 Dr. Cooke's new treatise on mycology, 1 dealing ex- 

 clusively with fungi, introduces the student to a group 

 of vegetables already classified into no fewer than 40,000 

 species ! Nor is this group one that civilised man can 

 afford to neglect. Many forms of disease, both in 

 animals and food plants, are now known to be the 

 result of fungus flourishing on and destroying living 

 organisms. For instance, if any remedy can be found 

 for the destructive salmon disease, it will arise from 

 more light on the life history of the aquatic fungus 

 Saprolegnia. The rusts and smuts that attack cereal 

 crops used to be much more formidable before their 

 true nature as fungi was understood; and the steady 

 advance in bacteriological research is full of promise of 

 a more intelligent system of dealing with human ail- 

 ments, now that many are known, and more are 

 suspected, to be caused by minute fungoid organisms. 



On the other hand, fuller knowledge will teach us 



1 Introduction to the Study of Fungi. By M. C. Cooke, LL.D. 

 London : A. and C. Black. 



