24 CURIOUS QUESTION. 



tlie excellency of the great Maker of all. This 

 dark hue is attributable to the spawn just men- 

 tioned ; and the fungi to which it gives birth 

 both consume putrescent organized matter, and 

 manure the land. 



This rule, like most others, seems to have 

 its exceptions. The simplest kind of fungi are 

 not, in the opinion of the highest authorities, 

 confined to substances in a state of decomposi- 

 tion, but attack parts of plants and animals in 

 full health and vigour. Nevertheless, it should 

 be borne in mind that there are many who 

 question whether the seeds of any fungi are, or 

 can be, developed without some incipient alter- 

 ation in the tissues of the subjects of their 

 attacks. Once started, they increase the ma- 

 lady; and perhaps they may be started in 

 such incipient stages of disease as to lead to 

 the belief, in numerous observers, that they 

 originate it. Both animals and vegetables may 

 certainly be inoculated by the fungi which are 

 .peculiar to them. It is right, however, to say 

 that inoculation produces disease. The silk- 

 worm may thus have given to it the disease 

 called muscardine. The fungus, from which 

 this effect results, is called Botrytis Bassiana, 



In some countries, there is a species of w^asp 



