1884-1885.] 3^9 



described 2,809 species, and each year has since added to the 

 list. Not much has been done to investigate them in Ireland. 

 Wade, in 1803, in his " Rarer Plants found in Ireland," gave a 

 list of 50 species ; and in 1878 Mr. Greenwood Pirn compiled a 

 list of the fungi of Counties Dublin and Wicklow for the guide- 

 book issued on the occasion of the visit of the British Associa- 

 tion to Dublin, which brought up the list of fungi found in Ire- 

 land to 470 species, and since then Mr. Pirn has recorded some 

 60 additional species. In the North of Ireland, the Belfast 

 Naturalists' Field Club has been doing something in the same 

 line. A suggestion of the lecturer's in a former communication 

 to the Club, on fungi, brought about two most agreeable fungus 

 forays, the only excursions of the kind ever held in Ireland — 

 the first in 1883 to Shane's Castle Demesne, and again in last 

 September to Killymoon, near Cookstown. These forays were far 

 from unsuccessful, though it is generally a bad opportunity for 

 searching a spot under pressure of the secretary's whistle, re- 

 minding members that they must catch a certain train ; and 

 the botanist always feels the day should be twice as long, and 

 plant-case and basket four times as capacious as they are. How- 

 ever, eighty species were identified among the collections at 

 Shane's Castle, and ninety from Killymoon. All these are to 

 be duly recorded in a list the writer has for some time been 

 engaged in preparing for publication in the Club's report. 

 With the aid of a series of coloured diagrams, a description was 

 then given of the method of classifying fungi, — by the way in 

 which the fruit or spores are borne, — by the colours of these 

 spores or seeds, which are white, pink, brown, purple, or black, 

 and by their forms, which are in endless variety and beauty. 

 Fungi, which have upon the under side of the cap numerous 

 vertical plates or gills, radiating like the spokes of a wheel, are 

 called agarics ; they are all shaped much like the common 

 mushroom, and abound in Ireland. The lecturer then referred 

 to a large number of drawings of such as have come under his 

 own observation, which were exhibited on the walls. In all, the 

 list of agarics satisfactorily determined as being natives of 

 Ulster is 135, a very small proportion of the entire number 



