166 FUNCTION OF COLOUR AND SMELL IN FUNGI. 



also slugs gather. Conchologists know, although I believe they 

 are unable to offer any explanation to account for it, that a 

 fungus may be found on the eggs of the grey slug even before 

 they are extruded from the body. Who knows but that the 

 slug is as necessary to the complete cycle of life of a lowly form 

 of fungus, as the horse, cow, or sheep is to the common 

 mushroom, or as the house-fly is to its own vegetable parasite ? 

 What the conditions of this association are, is a problem for the 

 future. 



Recently, several Journals have been vying with each other 

 in describing a New Zealand phenomenon which has won the 

 appellation of ''the strangest insect in the world." A caterpillar, 

 called by the natives the aweto, buries itself at the foot of 

 certain myrtles and clematis plants. When it is full grown, 

 a fungus shoots up from the creature's neck, just between 

 the head and the first ring. It grows to a height of about 

 eight inches, and is sustained by the supplies it draws from the 

 living substance of the caterpillar. It is said the fungus fills 

 up every possible space within ttie outer skin of its victim 

 without changing its form, simply substituting a vegetable 

 matter for an animal one. Of course, viewed in the light of the 

 foregoing remarks, there was absolutely no need for so much 

 astonishment at this animal-cum-vegetable wonder; whilst, to 

 assert, as one of our scientific journals gravely did, that "so far, 

 science has not been able to say whether it is a vegetable or an 

 insect," is absurd. If the substance of this paper be correct, this 

 New Zealand combination is no greater a miracle than a cow, a 

 squirrel, a rook, or a fly pursuing the even tenor of its way with 

 a fungus passing the first stage of its life-history within it. 

 Why this particular fungus and caterpillar keep such devoted 

 company, may possibly find an explanation in the possession by 

 the one of an odour or taste for which the other has a marked 

 predilection. 



Such, then, in brief, is a tentative explanation of the 

 functions of the beautiful and varied colours, and the many 

 kinds of taste and odour possessed by our native fungi. Here, 

 no less than with higher forms of life, the race is to the strong. 

 The peculiarities of colour, odour, and taste manifested by each 



