A iiidversclrjj Address. 11 



or even with Stevenson's alone, the student can make satis- 

 factory progress. 



It is not of course necessary to go on to show how with 

 such help Fungi are to be determined. That will appear at 

 once from the books themselves. The method of procedure 

 is precisely the same as for all botanical identification. Nor 

 can I go into any of the interesting questions that the sub- 

 ject of Fungology suggests. I have not endeavoured to do 

 anything else than simply persuade to the study of Fungi, 

 and indicate the way to set about it. This year they have 

 been more plentiful than for many years before ; and every 

 meadow and wood, every stump and tree is calling to us to 

 come and search them. The Algae, in their most beautiful 

 forms, are only found in saltwater; the rarer lichens and 

 mosses and ferns are confined to a few favourite habitats ; 

 but rare Fungi may be discovered almost wherever you 

 search for them, and no season of the year is without them, 

 though Autumn is the main season for the larger kinds. It 

 is when all the wild flowering plants are over, that they 

 come forth in their hosts. A few of them, and notably 

 Agaricus velutipes, are able to withstand even severe frosts. 

 The study of them lends a mow interest to the waning year. 

 An extensive fir wood in October is to the enthusiast a 

 happy hunting ground, and he asks nothing better than to 

 be turned adrift in it for a whole day. If you regard the 

 study of Fungi simply as an innocent hobby, it is by no 

 means to be despised. A man who has no hobby is miserable. 

 He does not know what to do with the odd corners of his 

 time, and he may supply an illustration to the well-known 

 lines of Dr. Watts about "idle hands." He deprives himself 

 of the best of all possible kinds of relaxation from the severer 

 and more serious work of his life by having no subject of 

 special interest to which he at once and instinctively turns. 

 But the study of Fungi is much more than an innocent and 

 harmless hobby. It is, like every similar study, a branch of 

 education in the best and widest sense of the word — that 

 kind of education which not only trains the faculties of ob- 

 servation and memory, and cultivates the intellectual power 



