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THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY > NATURALIST. 



brothers and counts ; who having received possession 

 of the Isle of Wight from their uncle, King Cerdic, 

 and his son Cynric, their cousin, slew the few 

 British inhabitants they could find in that island, at 

 a place called Gwihtgaraburgh." It is curious that 

 the name of the castle is not mentioned in Domes- 

 day ; it is there said to be seated on a virgate of land 

 within the manor of " Alwinestune," now Alvington, 

 Alwine, no doubt, being the same as the Ailwin 

 named above. F. A. E. 



WEATHER REPORT FOR THE WEEK. 



The following is an extract from the meteorological 

 register, made at the Ordnance Survey Office, Southamp- 

 ton, underthe direction of Col. Sir Charles Wilson, K.C.B., 

 K.C.M.G., F.R.S., R.E., for the week ended Oct. 30. 

 Latitude, 50 deg. 54 min. 50 sec. north ; longitude, i deg. 

 24 min. os. west ; height above the sea, 84 feet. Observer 

 Sergeant T. Chambers, R.E. 



*Black bulb in vacuo. 



THE HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB. 



A FUNGUS FORAY IN THE NEW FOREST. 



What is a fungus ? Many people probably would 

 find it difficult to answer this question, and would, 

 perhaps, regard it as an uncanny sort of plant. Others 

 with a little more knowledge will say that there are 

 two kinds of fungus mushrooms, which are eatable, 

 and toadstools, which are poisonous. Yet to those 

 who will give it a little study this is a very interesting 



class of vegetable. Fungi are not on\y remarkable 

 for their varied tints and many and sometimes 

 fantastic shapes, and the fact that in some of their 

 qualities they very closely approach to the character- 

 istics of animals, but a knowledge of them will open 

 up to the gourmand some unfamiliar but very pleasing 

 articles of food. Their study is being taken up now 

 in different parts of the country, the way haying been 

 led in Herefordshire by the Woolhope Club, which 

 has tabulated a list of some 600 different species to 

 be found in that county, and one of the members, 

 Mr. Worthington Smith, has published diagrams 

 showing those which are eatable, and those which 

 are noxious. Much has been done in the same direc- 

 tion by the Essex Field Club, and in our own county 

 the work has been taken up by the Hampshire Field 

 Club. A member of this club, the Rev. W. L. W. 

 Eyre, Rector of Swarraton, has been publishing in 

 its "Papers and Proceedings" a list of 

 fungi which have been found in the county, 

 and has now tabulated about 300 species. With a 

 view to extending the interest in this study, during 

 the last two or three autumns " forays " have been 

 arranged in some part or other of the New Forest, 

 and the presence at these of the great authority on 

 fungi, Dr. M. C. Cooke, M.A., LL.D., has done much 

 to make these meetings not only interesting, but 

 profitable. They have served to make known the 

 existence in the count}' of a considerable number of 

 fungi not previously identified. At the first meeting 

 in 1887 (reported in the Hampshire Independent of 

 Oct. 22, 1887) a collection was made in two days of 

 106 different specimens. Last year (Hampshire Inde- 

 pendent, Oct. 20) a similar two days' ramble produced 

 no less than 171 different species, of which 103 had 

 not been seen the previous year. Lists of the 209 

 species thus found in the New Forest were published 

 in the abeve-mentioned issues of this paper. 



This year it was thought desirable to confine the 

 meeting to one day, leaving the enthusiasts to follow 

 it up by another quiet day's ramble, and the day 

 selected was Frida}', October 25. It is strange that 

 the number of members attending these fungus forays 

 is very small ; one would think that, apart from 

 the search for fungi, the walk through the Forest would 

 prove acceptable to all, <. pccially as at this time of 

 the year the trees arc bright with their autumn 

 tints. But botany evidently provokes in manj' a 

 repellent idea, and on starting from Southampton the 

 party was not more than enough to fill one compart- 

 ment of the railway carriage. At Lyndhurst Road 

 Station Dr. Cooke, the Rev. W. L. W. Eyre, and Dr. 

 Buckell and Mr. J. T. Kemp, M.A., of Romsey, were 

 waiting, and other accessions to the party during the 

 day brought the total number up to 30. The route 

 selected was through the woods about the Bartley 

 Water. Two visitors from London had had a pre- 

 liminary search the day before, when they had bagged 

 some 30 species. Turning into the enclosure just to the 



