28 OUTLINES OF BRITISH FUNGOLOGY. 



for the present the consideration of this iufluencej I shall 

 simply indicate some of the peculiar situations in which Fungi 

 are occasionally found. 



Amongst the higher Fungi, the Coprini (Plate 12, fig. 1), 

 and those species oi Ayaricus, as for example A. disseminatus, 

 which are most nearly allied to them, are most capricious in 

 their habitats. Old damp carpets, naked walls, pestilential 

 drains entu'ely concealed from sight, and other anomalous 

 situations, are amongst those in which they assume an occa- 

 sional habitat, their proper place for the most part being 

 decayed wood, or the dung of graminivorous animals, which 

 closely resembles it in the Fungi which it nom-ishes. As the 

 Coprini are amongst the most rapid in their growth of any 

 Fungi, as every one knows who has watched their progress in 

 a new hot-bed, they sometimes appear in the most unexpected 

 situations. It is, for instance, not very uncommon to find 

 them on the dressings of amputated limbs, and surgeons are 

 in consequence sometimes very unjustly charged with negli- 

 gence by persons who are not acquainted with the speed with 

 which a Coprimes may pass through every stage of growth 

 from the spore to the perfect pileus. Where these plants — 

 as, for example, Coprinus radiatus and Agaricus disseminatus 

 — are developed on bare walls, they throw out an enormous 

 quantity of mycelium, in order to avail themselves as much as 

 possible of the moisture of the surrounding air. 



Though Fungi cannot exist without a certain degree of 

 moisture, they suffer in general from its excess. A few spe- 

 cies, however, are never found except on substances immersed 

 in water. The beautiful scarlet Mitrula paludosa, which is 

 the ornament in summer of every little quiescent drain in 

 some parts of Wales, uniformly grows on leaves or other 

 decayed vegetable matter floating in water, while Vibrissea 



