88 EDIBLE MUSHROOMS 



where it sheds its inky spore-solution upon the earth, 

 and yet, after years of waiting, there is no response. 

 Even an absolute transfer of the webby spawn from 

 the original haunt has proven equally without result. 

 Thus while the habitual fungus-hunter comes to rec- 

 ognize a certain logical association between a given 

 character of natural haunt and some certain species 

 of fungi — a prophetic suspicion often immediately 

 fulfilled — as when he inwardly remarks, as he comes 

 upon an open, clear spot in the woods, " This is an ideal 

 haunt for the green Russula," and instantly stumbles 

 upon his specimen ; yet he may take the pallid spawn, 

 with a small clod of earth from its roots, and place it 

 in the mould not ten feet distant, apparently in iden- 

 tically auspicious conditions, and it absolutely refuses 

 to be humored. He may mark the spot, and look 

 in vain in its precincts for a decade for his Russula, 

 though the ground in the vicinity be dotted with them. 



Year after year I have thrown my refuse specimens 

 of hundreds of species of fungi out of my studio win- 

 dow, over the piazza rail or upon my 

 Dormant lawn, yet never with the slightest sign 

 spores that one of the millions of spores in the 

 species thus sown has vegetated. 



Considering the ready accommodation of the Cam- 

 pestris, the contrast of the fastidiousness in other spe- 

 cies is a notable phenomenon. As a rule, " they will 

 not colonize; they will not emigrate; they will not 

 be cheated out of their natural possessions : they re- 

 fuse to be educated, and stand themselves upon their 

 single leg, as the most independent and contrary 

 growth with which man has to deal." 



