37° [Proc. B. N. F. C, 



known to fungologists. The popular error which regards all 

 fungi, except mushrooms, as intended for seats for frogs, was 

 humourously explained by a sketch of two huge toads or 

 frogs on toadstools, or, as called in County Antrim, paddock 

 stools. Their esculent properties were varied, and the reader 

 gave his personal experience as a toadstool eater, the only guide 

 to becoming an expert in that department being knowledge 

 and practice. There is no royal road or short cut by which to 

 know wholesome from poisonous species ; but the former are 

 the most numerous and common. With common sense and 

 Mr. W. G. Smith's coloured charts and guide to poisonous and 

 edible fungi, and Mr. M. C. Cooke's little handbook, which were 

 laid upon the table, there need be no fear of putting death into 

 the pot while preparing savoury dishes out of what is now 

 allowed to rot unheeded in our fields, and woods, and lanes. 

 But the mere study of these plants, in order to get a few more 

 dishes of savoury meat, is a rather unworthy motive, and the 

 study should be taken up for the sake of the knowledge itself 

 and the insight into the works of the great Creator, bringing us 

 a few more steps nearer to the beginning of life, and therefore 

 to that Being of whom, through whom, and in whom are 

 all things. A collection of dried fungi was shown. This is not 

 a satisfactory method of keeping the specimens, which in their 

 desiccated state are mere mummies ; hence the best and surest 

 plan is to make a careful portrait from a fresh specimen, and 

 make full notes of its place and time of growth, its size, colour, 

 and smell, the shape of the cap and gills and stem, and the hue 

 of the spores. The lecturer hoped that more of the members 

 of the Club would engage in this hitherto neglected department 

 of the Irish Flora, and mentioned how Mr. Pirn had already 

 found five species new to science as the reward of the attention 

 he had been able to devote to the subject. 



After the reading of the paper, several members spoke of the 

 importance of the subject, and of the able manner in which it 

 was brought forward by the reader. 



The President spoke of the extreme interest Mr. Lett had 

 given to this lowly class of plants ; and hoped in the future 



