54 
Cotton. Professor Massee has just completed an introductory 
work on fungi containing forty colored plates illustrating many 
species, which is to appear within a few months. visit to the 
new home of Professor Hemsley at Strawberry Hill was much 
enjoyed. I was entertained by Colonel Prain, the director, on 
ovember 10. On November 12, I sailed for New York from 
Liverpool on the S.S. ‘‘Carmania,” of the Cunard Line, arriving 
November 20. 
The results of this visit to the principal herbaria in Europe 
were most gratifying. All of the material bearing on the subject 
in hand was examined and compared with specimens from our 
own collections, and many valuable notes were secured. A series 
of articles on the gill-fungi of tropical North America will appear 
this year in Myco.ocia, beginning with the January number. 
Respectfully submitted, 
A. MuRRILL, 
Assistant Director. 
CONFERENCE NOTES. 
The regular monthly conference meeting was held in the 
library on February 1, and was presided over by Dr. W. A. 
Murrill. At this meeting Dr. E. D. Clark gave a discussion of 
work recently done on the poisonous properties of the mushroom, 
Inocybe infida. 
ss this Inocybe is usually considered a harmless mush- 
room, it recently caused the poisoning of a physician and his 
family in this vicinity. The physician reported his own symp- 
toms as follows: rapidly developing feeling of fullness of the 
head and an effect on the heart, likened to the action of nitro- 
glycerin, profuse sweating and finally pain in the abdomen, all 
Our attention was drawn to this plant and we undertook a 
chemical and toxicological investigation of its properties. 
The method of Harmsen for the isolation of muscarin from 
Amanita muscaria was applied to the sample of Inocybe infida. 
