FUNGI 
THEIR NATURE, USES, INFLUENCES, ETC. 
—+1 
I, 
NATURE OF FUNGI. 
Tue most casual observer of Nature recognizes in almost every 
instance that comes under his notice in every-day life, without 
the aid of logical definition, the broad distinctions between an 
animal, a plant, and a stone. To him, the old definition that an 
animal is possessed of life and locomotion, a plant of life with- 
out locomotion, and a mineral deficient in both, seems to be 
sufficient, until some day he travels beyond the circuit of 
diurnal routine, and encounters a sponge or a zoophyte, which 
possesses only one of his supposed attributes of animal life, but 
which he is assured is nevertheless a member of the animal 
kingdom. Such an encounter usually perplexes the neophyte 
at first, but rather than confess his generalizations to have 
been too gross, he will tenaciously contend that the sponge 
must be a plant, until the evidence produced is so strong that 
he is compelled to desert his position, and seek refuge in the 
declaration that one kingdom runs into the other so imper- 
ceptibly that no line of demarcation can be drawn between 
them. Between these two extremes of broad distinction, and 
no distinction, lies the ground occupied by the scientific student, 
‘wno, whilst admitting that logical definition fails in assigning 
briefly and tersely the bounds of the three kingdoms, contends 
