ll'i NOMAJ> FtfNGI. 



" pandering to the desire of novelty," etc., with an intimation that the 

 writer retained a preference for tlie steady old British jog-trot, though 

 it land him far in the rear of the rest of tlie world. To suppose that, 

 though a few hundreds of Continental physiologists all unite in testify- 

 ing to their helief, founded upon experiments,* in the necessitj' of a 

 total change in the classilication of the leaf-fungi, yet we in our island 

 shall continue to regard the facts as unproved, is conceited, not to say 

 absurd. What do we want ? Can we not trust biologists, other than 

 Englishmen, to make their experiments cai-efuUy and record their 

 conclusions truthfully ? The progress, and especially the manner of 

 the progress, of other branches of science certainly does not warrant 

 such a conviction. Are we to regard all their testimony as doubtful, and 

 possibly w(/OHf, until some British experimenter deigns to bestir him- 

 self. 



Happily, the question need no longer be asked. The British 

 experimenter has bestirred himself, and to one of our leading mycolo- 

 gists, Mr. C. B. Plowright, of King's Lynn, belongs the high honour of 

 being the first to remove this stain from British science. His words 

 are, in the light of the past, so remarkable that I cannot do better 

 than quote them in full. '"So far as I know," he says, " no one in 

 this country has taken the trouble to put the matter to the test of 

 experiment. For my part, it may be said that, having conducted 

 upwards of a hundred cultures during the past two years, I have 

 no doubt whatever upon the subject. We are piittiug ourselves in a 

 hypercritical position if we refuse to believe what competent observers 

 assert, simply because we have not ourselves actually seen it."t And let 

 me add that the state of the case is not improved when the •' competent 

 observers " are of a foreign race, and the unbelieving spectators 

 belong to this favoured nation. We are often reproached for our 

 insularity, and it is certain that we have often fallen behind the 

 science of the age by incredulous contempt for foreign observers. I 

 rejoice, therefoi-e, to see Mr. Plowright strike the first blow at that 

 body of errors which has hitherto passed for knowledge about leaf fungi 

 in Britain — that house of cards which now, at the touch of Ithuriel's 

 spear, falls "like the baseless fabric of a vision." 



The RKVisKi> Classification. 



You will best appreciate the extent of the change if I place before 

 you Dr. Winter's revised classification, so far as it relates to British 

 species, and compare it with the one now obsolete : — 



USTILAGINE^. 



Ustilago Tilletia Urocystis 



Sorosporium Entyloma+ 



* See " Comptes Eendus," 1880, and " Botanlsche Zeitung," passim. 

 t " Science Gossip," September, 188-2, p. 196. 



; The species of tliisRenus discovei'crl in Britain are recorded in the paces of 

 trrevillea under the name of Protomyces. 



