290 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
small cameos is about £8000, giving a total value of the cameos pro- 
duced in Paris for the last year of £40,000; while in England not 
more than six persons are employed in this trade. 
5. Esculent Funguses of England, (Atheneum, No. 1037, p. 948.) 
—The English are not a fungus-eating nation,—and in the “ good old 
times” this might have been as much a boast as the common one, that 
we never eat frogs. Though we do not eat frogs like our neighbors the 
French, we are rather celebrated for our love of another of the reptilian 
family, turtle. There is no reason why we should eschew frogs, and 
relish turtle. There is still less for our eating one or two of the num- 
berless edible funguses which our island produces, and condemning all 
the rest as worse than useless, under the name of “ toad-stools.’”’ It is 
not so on the continent of Europe ; where very generally the various 
versed in botany, and whose duty it is to examine and report on a 
such plants exposed for sale. The safety with which these vegetables 
may be eaten, has led to a very large consumption in that city, where 
not Jess than 140,000 pounds weight, worth £4000 sterling, are annu- 
ally consumed. This in a population of 156,000 souls. e cannot 
estimate the value of funguses in our own country for an article of diet 
as less than in Italy; nor believe that the supply would be in a less ratio. 
If this be correct, the value of the funguses which are allowed to spring 
up and die, wasted in Great Britain, would be about half a million ster- 
ling in each year. , 
Dr. Jos. D. Hooker’s Botanical Mission to India, (Lond. Journal 
of high satisfaction to all naturalists. This patronage is peculiarly evin- 
' ined in the British 
ment, we have to announce that one of the most enthusiastic votaries 
brought his Flora Antarctica to a close, has been appointed by H. M. 
Government to investigate the vegetable productions of India, and espe- 
cially of the Himalaya Mountains; and as a treaty is now in progress 
between the British powers in Hindostan and the Chinese, with refer- 
Be 2 
